Return&Rehash
by Le Requiem
Summary: Sakura didn't know how she had survived the deathblow, but she was alive, somehow. She tightened her hold around Sasuke's neck, "I can't believe you tried to kill me," she snarled. She was still trembling, but whether it was in fear or anger, she couldn't tell...in which Sakura challenges fate — SasuSaku, M for Language
1. The End

**i. The End**

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It is mid-afternoon. Mountains of white clouds wade through the cobalt summer sky, and the hot sun hangs at its zenith in blue space, beating relentlessly down upon them from high above. Just a short while ago they had been standing in a meadow overflowing with sprays of wild flowers that had slowly swayed and nodded in the tepid afternoon breeze; now, it is pockmarked by craters made by her fists, the flowers crushed beneath the dark red rubble of upturned earth.

In a patch of poppies Sakura stands on trembling legs and drenched in sweat as she takes in loud, ragged breaths, her chest furiously pumping up and down, up and down. She has an arm wrapped around her waist, trying to ease the massive stitch at her side. It has been almost forty minutes into the fight and she is beginning to near the end of her endurance. Her cuts and scrape glow vibrantly as they well with blood, and the burn from them ebbs and flows as she struggles to keep the pain out of her mind.

She can feel the rest of her body slowly falling apart. Her legs are growing weak, her breathing is growing hard, but her green eyes remain rock steady, fixed on Uchiha Sasuke. In sharp contrast to the fire roiling in her eyes, Sasuke regards her with a cool disinterest, as if she were no more than a passing irritation he'd rather not deal with. He stands a stone's throw away, still as a statue and not a speck of dirt or sweat on his flawless, alabaster skin. His hair is the only thing out of place as it flutters in the light breeze. A sense of black despair begins to slowly raise its head within Sakura, but she furiously stomps down on it before it can grow into panic.

She could. She is a pupil of the Fifth Hokage and a monstrously strong kunoichi. She can tear the Earth asunder and bring buildings crumbling to their knees with her bare fists. Sakura digs her heels into the ground. She is no longer the longhaired, soft-skinned thirteen year old struck by puppy love. She is eighteen and a hardened veteran who is on a mission. She takes in a deep breath to even out her breathing and clear her head of doubt. She could do this.

There is a long, drawn out pause. Sakura can hear the blood rushing in her ears as her heart knocks loudly against her chest. As a medic nin, she's better suited to counter moves rather than be the first to assault. So she watches Sasuke intently, her body coiled and ready to snap into action at the first twitch of his fingers. Indifferent to her scrutiny, he stands with his weight on one foot, knowing that every second that ticks by cranks the tension even tighter.

A wayward gust of wind tumbles by them, hissing through the grass as it furiously rattles the wildflowers against her ankle. A massive cloud slides overhead them and a shadow passes over the land.

A rasp of metal rings out through emptiness between them as Sasuke draws his sword and snaps forward like a whip. Her body moves instinctively, twisting away from an attack she can't see. She feels the pull of his slipstream as he rips by her. There is a cold kiss on her shoulder. It's all too sudden, too abrupt to follow, like thumbing through a flipbook that's had too many pages torn out.

Her thoughts scramble to get back into the fight. She whirls around to face him panting loudly and heart thundering in her chest from the adrenaline because it had been a close call, and her legs won't stop shaking, and, and _gods_ that was too close. He is frighteningly fast and for the first time in that fight, she is afraid.

The world brightens as the cloud moves on, and the returning sunlight licks the edge of the blade hanging at Sasuke's side. The sudden flash catches Sakura's eye, but that is not what keeps her transfixed on the metal. The edge is tinted red, slowly weeping blood from its tip.

Wondering if he had nicked her, she begins to examine herself, starting at her legs. Something white in the grass grabs her attention and she stares at it in morbid fascination. It is grotesque, turned upward and exposed like the pale of belly of a dead fish. Gray fingers claw at the skies as blood drains out of the other, gored end. An arm—it is a dismembered arm. But who's?

She looks up, and Sasuke has both limbs attached as they hang idly at his side. She looks back down at the thing in confusion. It can't be hers because she had avoided that last blow, she is sure of it.

It is then she realizes that her shirt feels wet against her skin. Something warm is dripping onto her leg, and she can't move the fingers in her left hand. Slowly, Sakura turns to look and for a long moment, she is confused by what she sees. There is a pause as her mind tries put together what she's putting together as if struggling with jigsaw pieces that just won't fit. Then time catches up, reality crashes into her, and her heart is thrown against her ribs. Horror lunges to the surface, shattering the thin glass of calm she had placed over her panic.

Her head wildly swings back to look at the arm on the ground—her arm. That is her arm.

The truth she had been trying so hard to stretch snaps back together, and the sting of reality slaps her brain out of its shock. Her flesh is suddenly on fire. She inhales sharply and claps her remaining hand over the wound, and she wants to scream bloody murder. Instead, she grits her teeth so hard that it feels as if they might sink back into her gums.

Sakura pushes a huge wave of molded chakra into the area, killing off the nerves and deadening them to the pain. She ignores that strange, airy sensation of critical chakra levels, more focused on reliving her own suffering, and for a moment there is sweet relief as the angry blaze at her side smolders down into a dull, red throb. Then the world spins crazily around her and she slams against the earth, crushing grass and wildflowers beneath her dead weight. White spots dance across her vision like swarms of gnats, and she is churning beneath a sea of disorientation.

Sasuke approaches her slowly—casually, like a hunter approaching the hare in his steel jaw trap. His cold shadow falls over her shuddering, panting form and Sakura's heart flutters with hummingbird wing beats. While they had been exchanging blows earlier, she was confident, not in her skills, but in him. The certainty that he wouldn't—couldn't— kill her had swaddled her in a blanket of security, had kept her calm—almost reckless— despite the relentless ferocity behind his attacks.

But Sakura has lost her arm, and the blanket has been ripped away from her. It occurs to her then that she had never been fighting to bring him home; she had been fighting for her life.

Her pathetic wheezing and the grass rattling in the wind fill the long silence.

"You're naiive Sakura," he says at length. His voice is flat, lacking the necessary spite to make it an insult. For some reason that makes it all the worse.

The smell of dark earth fills her nose as she shifts slightly to lock gazes with him. When she sees those blank, dispassionate eyes, Sakura is gripped by the urge to scream at him in frustration, to get a rise out of him, to make him _care_.

Because how did he do that? How did he raise a blade at her without even so much as hesitating? How does he have the gall to just stand there shamelessly after dismembering her? She knew Team Seven still meant something to him. It had to. That last "thank you" hadn't been hollow words. He had meant it. She _damn well_ _knew_ he meant it, and those two words were what had been stoking her hopes all these years.

He places his feet by her head and raises the sword with both hands over her. A burst of blue sparks erupts along the blade—Chidori.

"Sasuke-kun," she says hoarsely, trying to find purchase in his heart.

He doesn't give any indication that he's heard her. She closes her eyes and her breathing grows quicker. She can see the electricity flash and dance behind her closed lids. This has got to be a joke. _This can't be it_, she thinks. It is a foolish hope, but she clings to the possibility that he may remember.

Remember the afternoons they spent laying on hilltops, the grass tickling their skin as they watched the clouds race by. Remember the bento her mother would pack for the three of them after a long day of training. Remember runaway cats and his stupid tomato garden that they still took care of. Remember watching spring come under the falling cherry blossoms. Remember Kakashi-sensei's lame excuses, Naruto's idiot laugh, and his own quiet smile.

Remember their bonds.

"Sasuke-kun!" She screams, this time desperate and fearful, but the cry is lost amongst the shrill cries of a thousand chirping birds.

The blade plunges down.

Black out.

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Sakura jerked violently awake and threw herself into a sitting position, panting hard for the in-black air. Her heart galloped in her chest, and despite the deep darkness, the room felt like it was titillating madly around her. Blood pounded in her ears as she half-crawled, half-stumbled out of the futon,. Her entire body shook uncontrollably and she knew nothing save the save the fear that raged through her. An involuntary sob bubbled out of her. Suddenly the image of a white arm lying in the tall grass flashed in her head. Red blood was everywhere and chidori screeched in her ear. Fear exploded into full-blown terror.

She gripped her arm and screamed.

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"…ra…kura! Hey! Sakura!" Someone grabbed Sakura's shoulder.

Blindly she knocked it away and retched air and saliva. She was on her knees, shuddering with head in her hands, her thoughts swinging chaotically between the darkness and a sunlight field.

The hands locked around her arms again. She tried to shake them off, but they were iron-tight. Panic surged inside of her and she thrashed wildly like a trapped animal. Hysteria seeped into her voice. "No! Let me go!"

"Sakura! Calm down! Ow! Hey! Sakura!" The hands gave her a hard shake, "_Look at me_!"

The command pierced through her blind panic and clarity was forced back into her eyes. The blurry face before her came into focus and she froze.

Uchiha Sasuke.

Her arms shot out to shove him away and he fell back with a shout. Reflexively she reached down for a kunai, but her legs were bare. Desperate for a weapon, she groped frantically behind her, closing her hand around the first thing she touched. She flung it forward without hesitation.

"The hell Sakura—" Sasuke was cut off as the pillow struck his head with a loud _whump_. He angrily snatched the fluffy projectile off of his face with a few choice words already in mind. The first syllable of his oath was just beginning to roll off his tongue when a fist caught him square in the jaw.

Pain exploded where the blow had landed, but he didn't have the time to dwell upon it. The right hook sent him tumbling head-over-heels across the room until he crashed to a backbreaking halt against the opposing wall. Thoroughly stunned, all he could manage was a low groan as he lied in a boneless heap.

Still reeling, he didn't even have the time to catch his breath when he was heaved up and slammed against the wall. Stars sprang out before his vision and he gagged as an iron grip clamped around his throat. He struggled to break free but the hands' vice-like hold held fast.

Closing his eyes he waited for the nauseating moment to pass and blearily reopened them. His eyebrows furrowed as his rattled thoughts grappled to make sense of what he was seeing: Sakura.

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Sakura didn't know how she had survived the deathblow, but she was alive, somehow. She tightened her hold around Sasuke's neck, "I can't believe you tried to _kill_ me," she snarled. She was still trembling, but whether it was in fear or anger, she couldn't tell.

Sasuke choked out an unintelligible response, but Sakura didn't care to hear it. "You tried to _kill _me," she repeated angrily. Her eyes grew hot with tears. She pulled back a clenched fist packed with chakra, the same amount she used to level mountains and blow open holes through steel. At point blank rage the force of this punch would send him through the wall and shatter his skull. It was certain death. Her lips formed a grim line.

'_Do it! Kill him_,' the voice in her head screamed. She wanted to be as strong as him, strong enough to break those bonds and kill him mercilessly. '_Come on Sakura,' _she urged herself, '_He cut off your arm and drove a sword through your head. He tried to kill you—" _

Her thoughts fell apart as her eyes lowered from Sasuke's face to the hand pinning him against the wall. She brought her fisted hand in front of her and she looked back and forth between the two libms.

He had cut her arm off. She had two arms.

"What...?"

The lapse in her concentration caused the chakra broiling in her right fist to quickly break apart and disperse.

Someone pulled her hand off of Sasuke's neck. "That's enough Sakura," a familiar voice said. Sakura didn't resist; still dumbfounded that her dismembered arm had somehow reattached itself.

Sasuke fell to his knees, coughing and sputtering. "Sakura… you… _shit_…" he cursed furiously between gulps of hair.

"Sakura?" The voice prodded behind her.

She started and turned her head in surprise. Her silver-haired teacher towered above her, and for a moment she wondered if he had grown.

"Kakashi-sensei?" He was supposed to be away on an S-Class mission with Naruto. They had told her it would be months before they were expected to return.

"Yo." The man raised his free hand in a lazy greeting, but he didn't release her wrist; his wariness was not lost upon her.

"Sensei? You—what're you doing here? Is Naruto, back too?" She looked around for the blonde and noticed her surroundings for the first time: wooden floorboards, a sleeping pallet, windows, ceilings…when had she gotten into a room?

Kakashi cocked an eyebrow. "Naruto's asleep. I'm here because I heard some shouting and banging from my student's room and decided to come see what all the excitement was all about. And, well…" His eyebrows furrowed as he looked back and forth between Sasuke and her. "I think one of you needs to explain the rest."

"I..." She glanced at the dark haired boy and bit her lower lip, tortured by her own confusion. There was something off about this entire picture.

The door slid open with a bang. Naruto stepped into the room, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "What's going on?" He caught Sasuke still on his knees, breathing hard, and Sakura standing over him with her hands still fisted. A grin split across his face.

"Ehhh? Sasuke you pervy bastard, you said you were just going to the bathroom. Hah! Good job, Sakura-chan! Beat that idiot to a bloody pulp!" He punched his fist encouragingly into the air.

Sasuke snarled, his voice still raw, "Shut up, dumbass."

"_Naruto_?" Now Sakura was utterly lost. "I thought you were—wait…" She struggled to fit the two pieces together. It was hard to see in the dark, but the blonde looked shorter, scrawnier. And when had his voice returned to that annoying, high-pitched, pre-pubescent—_click. _

Sakura felt her stomach drop. Her attention flicked back Kakashi, who wasn't taller; she had _shrunk. _

She must have had a wild look in her eye because her teacher's hard expression softened into worry. "Sakura?"

She ignored him as her eyes slid back to the other boy before her. She had not been mistaken; it was Uchiha Sasuke. But what she had missed was his rounder face and how he seemed smaller, younger. And his eyes—he was giving her one of the blackest looks in his repertoire, but they lacked the emptiness, the indifference, of that cold-hearted killer in the meadow.

The weight of reality brought her crashing to her knees. This was _insane_.

Startled, Kakashi let go of her wrist and stepped towards her. "Sakura!"

The grin was wiped off of Naruto's face as he finally realized the gravity of the situation. He jogged over to his teammates, but before he could ask what was wrong, Sakura suddenly launched herself at Sasuke, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

Sasuke stiffened, ready to counter what he thought was a chokehold, when he heard her muffled voice in his ears. "This…I must be dreaming." She burrowed her head deeper into the crook of his neck and a hot breath whispered across the hollow of his throat; she was hugging him. He placed a hand on her arm to try and wrench her arm, but she only tightened her grip. He winced as she unwittingly crushed his windpipe again.

Sasuke ground his teeth together impatiently. "Sakura," he began, but his words were overtaken by her voice.

"I'm dreaming," she shakily said again and Sasuke felt his shirt dampen. Then in a louder voice, "This is a dream…it must be a dream." Her voice broke over the last word and a sob scraped out of her throat. It struck the three males silent.

Sasuke's hands hovered by the mess of pink hair, afraid to touch her. He looked at his teacher pointedly: '_Do something!'_

Kakashi crouched before his two students. "Sakura, is everything alright?"

She didn't turn to face her teacher and just shook her head, shuddering violently against Sasuke's chest. The wet patch on his shirt grew larger and Sasuke grimaced, wishing Kakashi would hurry up and just rip the girl off of him.

Naruto stood by, feeling awkward and helpless in the face of Sakura's muted tears. "Hey Sakura-chan," he tried hesitantly, clearly unnerved, "uhm, you okay?"

Another muted sob broke out against Sasuke's neck, and the three males cringed. Kakashi wanted to know what was going on, but he had a sneaking suspicion using ANBU interrogation techniques on his own students wouldn't go over well with the Third, and it was clear she didn't want to talk about it just yet. Going by how closely this followed on the heels of their fight against Zabuza and Co., he even suspected that she just had a nightmare, post-trauma and all that; the kind of stuff that he himself had little license to deal with. His own mental health wasn't exactly a walk in the park, if the psych exams were anything to go by.

Either way it didn't seem like she was hurt anywhere, which was a relief. If the situation remained the same by tomorrow, well… then he had tomorrow morning to deal with it, and if she needed, they could get her a nice psychologist back at the village. Until then, hopefully the two could sort out the issue amongst themselves. As the responsible adult in this situation he took the most logical and levelheaded course of action: he left.

As he shepherded a protesting Naruto out of the room, he turned and looked at Sasuke: '_Fix it_.'

Sasuke glared back: '_The hell am I supposed to do?'_

The door slid shut in answer and Sasuke fumed, grinding his teeth together in irritation. '_That good for nothing scarecrow…'_

It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since he had been turned into a giant pincushion by Haku, and now he had an emotionally wrecked girl hanging off of his neck. There were worse things in life, but that didn't make him any more willing to bear this. His aching jaw and sore throat only worsened his mood.

Despite his irritation, Sasuke couldn't bring himself to pry Sakura off and abandon her in the room. He didn't know what had shaken the girl so badly, but she clung to him with the desperate grip of the drowning, and he had never forgotten that feeling of raw terror. He rummaged within himself but couldn't find the coldness in his heart to leave her alone.

Instead he tipped his head back against the wall with resignation and stared up at the ceiling, listening blankly to the frightened girl crying into his shoulders. He hesitantly placed a hand on the back of her head, gently pressing her shaking form closer to his chest.

It was a comforting act, a very human gesture.

It made Sakura cry all the harder.


	2. Return

**ii. Return**

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Sakura didn't know how much time had passed. A few minutes? Half an hour? She couldn't think straight. She felt hot and dizzy, and wanted to pull away from the heat of Sasuke's chest for a moment to feel the cool air against her face. However, the hand that had held onto her so reassuringly now rested against her back like a butterfly, touching her so lightly that she was afraid the slightest movement would make it disappear. And she needed that touch—his touch—more than a breath of fresh air, more than anything else, so she remained pressed against him.

Had it been another time, another place, and perhaps, another situation when she could expend the energy to actually give a damn, she might have been mortified about drenching Sasuke's shirt in tears, snot, and probably saliva. But at this particular moment in time she was too light-headed to care that his top felt damp beneath her cheek. Actually, the only two things that she managed to get her head wrapped around was that Sasuke wasn't waving a sword in her face and that she was still alive.

She was alive, right?

Sakura felt Sasuke shift beneath her. She stiffened and without thinking, her hands fisted the fabric of his shirt. He froze in place and Sakura felt ashamed. She forced herself to pull away from him, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable as the comfort of his hand slipped off her back.

"Uhm…sorry—" she grimaced at the sound of her graveled voice. "I didn't mean to. I mean…you can leave if you want, you know. I'll be fine," she lied.

The reality was she was scared. She was sure she had died in that meadow, and she didn't understand what was going on, or why she was where she was, and she wasn't sure if she could bear facing such uncertainty alone. However, the possibility that she was forcing him to stay made her pride rush forward and display false bravado. "It was just a stupid dream." She put a hand on his chest, "so you can go, now." It probably would have been more convincing if she wasn't mumbling, or if she had looked him in the eye. Instead, she stared at the floor, biting her lower lip, wondering if the hand on his chest was pushing him away or hanging onto him.

Sasuke didn't say anything. Sakura could sense the frightened little girl within her beginning to hope that he wouldn't go, that despite her hand he'd stay.

Sakura heard a tired sigh and suddenly her hand was grabbing empty air. He sighed tiredly and rose with clicking joints. His padded footsteps drew further and further away from her. The door slid open and closed. Sakura looked up from the floor and around the room, her hopes finally crashing back down to reality**;** He had really left.

She suddenly flared with irrational anger, attempting to hide her own embarrassment. Stupid, stupid, _stupid. _She was angry with her stupid self, for daring to think such ridiculous things, to stupidly _hope _for something so, so…_stupid_. For the sake of the gods, this was _Uchiha Sasuke, _who had the emotional quotient of a brick. She slapped the naïve girl inside of her. _'Get a hold of yourself, stupid.' _ What was she, twelve?

Her situation suddenly crashed down on her so hard it was almost audible. She hissed a curse under her breath. Mirror. She needed a mirror. Her eyes raked across her surroundings. The damn room didn't have a mirror. She scrambled towards the door, performing a clumsy crawl-stagger-run transition.

She almost ripped the door off in her haste and launched herself into a hallway. In her hurry Sakura almost missed Sasuke. She ran two steps down the hallway before stumbling to a stop and whipping around. "Sasuke-kun?"

Moonlight spilled out of her room's open door, raking across the opposing wall. Just a few feet away from the spotlight, Sasuke stood within hallway's shadows, leaning against the wall with arms crossed. She heard him exhale sharply in irritation.

Sakura took an uncertain step towards him, "Sasuke-kun?" He remained still. "Hey," she reached out, and he snapped his head towards her, eyes hard, and lips pressed into a firm, unwelcoming line. She let her hand fall back to her side, "what're you doing here?"

He didn't answer, narrowing his eyes instead. She remembered those days when she vied for Sasuke's attention, desperately wanting him to look her way. Now that he was looking, she wondered how she had ever been so deluded in wanting to be at the receiving end of such a frigid expression. The back of neck prickled as she endured his scrutiny, but her green eyes matched his gaze evenly.

"Where are you going," he said at length. It wasn't a question, but he expected an answer.

"I was just looking for a...the bathroom."

He gave her another long, evaluating stare. Then he closed his eyes in dismissal and walked past her, "Bathroom's the other way."

"Oh, right," Sakura spun around. "I was just sort of in a hurry," she finished lamely and speed-walked down the hall.

Behind her, Sasuke watched her from over his shoulder. When she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, he turned his head and continued towards his own room.

_Weird girl_.  
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In the bathroom, there was a dingy tub next to the sink, and right above it, a small square of window. Sakura stepped into the tub, cringing against the cold film of used bathwater. Sucking it up, she took a few more steps and pushed the window open, peering out on her tip-toes.

A blast of wind blew into her face; she smelled salt. As her eyes, adjusted to the darkness she spotted the moon reflected onto the black-blue waters of the ocean. Nearby she could hear the crash of waves breaking on the beach.

_This place..._

She shut the window and carefully stepped out of the tub. The last time she been to the Land of Waves was back when team seven had their first brush with death during their fight with Zabuza and that beautiful boy...'_What was his name?_ _Oh right, Haku_.' That was almost six years ago.

She returned to the sink and looked into the mirror. The little girl before her frowned slightly.

Even in this world, where people could walk on water and summon giant animals out of thin air, time travel was impossible. But, nothing else made sense. There was the chance that she was under a genjutsu, but then, this would be the strangest genjutsu she had ever experienced, let alone heard of. Normally the purpose of an illusion was to attack the victim's mental state. '_Then again…' _Sakura turned sideways and took in her figure and grimaced. The walls were probably seething with jealousy.

Being reminded of how less-than-well endowed she used to be was a bit depressing, though Sakura wasn't sure if attacking her self-esteem counted as a psychological torture. Maybe it was a bit on the stranger side of cruel, but she didn't see the point.

Time travel...but how?

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The next morning, Tazuna had gone into town after an early breakfast for a quick meeting with the rest of the villagers. Inari was still fast asleep and Tsunami, after cooking up breakfast for her shinobi guests, had gone into the garden to gather a few vegetables so that she could pack Team Seven a lunch for their journey back home.

And so, it was silent at the breakfast table.

Conspicuously silent.

Sasuke felt last night dangling above his head like a giant piñata and he knew that Naruto was too much of a meathead to not want to give it a good figurative whack. In fact, as far as Sasuke could tell from across the table, the idiot was giving himself an aneurism from trying to will the story out of them with his eyes… or at least**, **that's what Sasuke assumed he was trying to do. The blonde was switching his gaze back and forth between him and Sakura, giving what he probably thought was an "intense" and "questioning" gaze. Sasuke thought it just made him look stupider than usual.

Next to Naruto, Kakashi had his nose buried in his copy of _Icha-Icha Paradise_, though it didn't escape Sasuke that his teacher had been on the same page for the past five minutes. Either Kakashi was a slow reader or he was plotting something. And since the words "Kakashi" and "slow" were rarely ever put side by side in the same sentence, Sasuke suspected the latter.

And, as it was with most things, Sasuke's suspicions were right… to a point. He was correct in assuming that Kakashi wasn't actually paying attention to the text before him. The silver-haired man was, in fact, waiting. The large, shiny, metaphorical piñata had not escaped his notice either and he was anticipating for a certain blonde student of his to be the first to prod it.

Of course, _he_ could always be the first to bring it up**. **However, that would probably involve using some lame, eye-cringe-inducing segue like, "So…about last night…" and Kakashi's general rule of thumb was to try and avoid all things lame and/or eye-cringe**-**inducing as best as possible. Such things were best left up to people who did things like wear fluorescent-green-spandex-body-suits in full view of the public eye. A certain Might Gai suddenly came to mind.

Naturally, there was also option number two**, **which called for a simple and direct approach. But then again, it was usually against the nature of most shinobi to do anything simply or directly—

"Argh! I can't handle it anymore!" Naruto jabbed an angry finger at Sasuke's face, "What the hell happened last night?"

Bingo.

The silver-haired man smiled beneath his mask. Well, he couldn't really say that Uzumaki Naruto was _most _shinobi.

Sasuke ignored his teammate and continued his meal. Hell if he would talk. Not even he really understood Sakura's outburst last night. If he hadn't known any better, he would think that Sakura had tried to kill him. It was only the fact that it was _Sakura_ who was concerned that kept him from thinking otherwise. For god's sakes the girl's hair was _pink_.

The blonde's blue eyes glared accusingly at the teammate sitting across the table. "Hey! Bastard**,** stop imagining yourself naked and answer me—"

"Naruto," Sakura cut him off. Her patience could take only so many flecks of rice flying out of the blonde's mouth and ricocheting off of her face. "Get off the table and sit back down."

"B-but Sakura-chan, I want to know—"

"Off the table. Now."

"But—" Sakura quirked an eyebrow. The arching patch of pink hair promised a head-smack and a possible bloody nose if he kept it up. Naruto gulped down the rest of his complaint, and complied (though maybe a bit grudgingly) and plopped back into his seat with a huff. He crossed his arms and gave Sasuke the stink eye. The Uchiha deflected it with his usual wall of apathy.

"It was just a nightmare," Sakura was talking to Kakashi now, whose silence she suspected wasn't rooted in indifference. "A _really _bad nightmare**,** and I don't really want to think about it anymore**,** so can we please just get past it all?" She pleaded.

Kakashi nodded understandingly and flipped a page in the book. He would bite that explanation.

It had probably been yesterday's fight against Zabuza. It wasn't uncommon for genin to suffer from mild cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, especially after their first brush with death. Actually, Kakashi was a little surprised (and maybe a tiny bit impressed) that neither Sasuke nor Naruto seemed too shaken by the ordeal. Then again**,** watching your brother murder your entire clan was a bit hard to top**, **and Naruto was probably a bit too thick (by both definitions of the word) to ever suffer permanent damage from anything.

Sasuke placed his chopsticks down on the table. The chair scraped across the floor as he stood up to leave.

"Hey, where do you think you're going bastard! Are you going to train?" Naruto shouted after him, because the blonde could never say anything to his arch-nemesis in a normal tone of voice.

"No idiot, I'm going to go pack my bags."

"Yeah? Well _I'm_ going to go and train after breakfast."

"Go ahead."

"Oh yeah?"

"Dumbass, I'm not trying to argue with you."

Naruto opened his mouth, hoping he'd be able to come up with a blindingly clever retort on the fly. Unfortunately, he had nothing. He closed his mouth again. He really couldn't say anything. Damn it. That _bastard_.

Kakashi smiled as he playfully ruffled a fuming Naruto's mess of blonde hair. Even if he _had _probably been dropped on his head a few times when he was baby, the kid was cute (in that pee-everywhere**, **chew-everything puppy sort of way).

"Naruto, one of these days I'm going to have to teach you how to use tact."

The blonde's frown deepened. "Huh?"

"Tact… it's an important skill for a shinobi to know."

"Why the hell does a shinobi need to know how to use push pins?"

"…" He was kidding**, **right? Somewhere across the table Sakura brought her hand to her face. It made an exasperated _smack_.

"Sensei?" Naruto blinked up at his teacher expectantly.

"No, never mind Naruto."

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By the time Tazuna came back from the village, Tsunami had finished packing the shinobi's lunches-to-go and Inari had finally woken up, only to sulk around the porch after realizing the Konoha ninja would be departing soon. Of course Naruto quickly fixed that after boxing Inari in the ears and telling him that real men didn't bitch and moan. Then Naruto started to tear up. Then Inari got all weepy. And then Tazuna tried rubbing his eyes discreetly, saying that it needed to rain soon because the air was too dry and it was making his eyes itch, but everyone knew he was a really just a lying old fart.

After exchanging their last round of goodbyes, Team seven started their way back home to the Leaf.

The road they took cut through the countryside and the scenery didn't offer much except green fields and a blue sky. It was a little-used route and they had yet to come across any other travelers. Even hyper-active- machine-gun-for-a-mouth Naruto was subdued by the quiet. After a few hours of walking in a comfortable silence, they came across a behemoth of a pine-tree standing just off the road. Kakashi made the executive decision to break and do lunch beneath the ancient piece of lumber.

As they all began to settle down, Kakashi went off to refill their canteens, telling them before he left to begin eating with out him. Not needing to be told twice, Sakura and Naruto began to eagerly pop off the lids of their bento boxes.

"Awesome! Look at these—hey wait! Sakura-chan! Why does yours get sausages?

"Back off Naruto, these are _mine_."

"Wait, that's _my _bento box!"

"No it's not."

"Yeah look, my name's right here. NA-RU—"

"I said _back off_."

"But Sakura-chan, I _hate_ eggrolls—er…I…uh…mean…Itadakimasu!"

Sakura smiled in satisfaction as she lowered her fist and picked up her chopsticks. She poised them over her meal, trying to decide whether to first go for the star-shaped carrot or the octopus-shaped sausage links. She had almost made up her mind (she was leaning towards the carrot) when Sasuke suddenly plopped onto the grass next to her, making her visibly flinch. "Great."

Wait. She did _not_ just say that out loud.

The Uchiha turned his face towards her and cocked an eyebrow.

Damn it. Yes she had. "I mean, oh great! Naruto you were right, this _is_ your lunchbox. Hurry and trade with me. Now."

The blonde looked up at her. "Whaf? Buft I thaw thew saith duh thawthages whap thors," his mouth looked like it was stuffed with earwax. So much for hating egg rolls.

"Oh… right. Then that's...okay then," Sakura said lamely as she speared an octo-sausage with her chopsticks and shoved it into her mouth. It wasn't that she hated Sasuke or anything. The problem was that there was no closure. Last night remained an unspoken event, and she had yet to...she didn't even know. Thank him? Talk about it? Apologize? Truth be told, between the two of them, she was probably the only one was bothered by it in the first place.

Even more pressing was her current warped reality situation. It was still difficult for her to wrap her mind around the idea that she had somehow been blasted back six years into the past.

Sakura's forehead knitted together as she began to re-evaluate her genjutsu theory.

"Sakura-chan. Sakura-chan. Hey, Earth to Sa. Ku. Ra. Chaaan."

She blinked a few times. "Huh?" As soon as she said so, she felt something fall out of her mouth and land on her lap. Looking down, a slobbery piece of sausage stared up at her accusingly (well if sausages had eyes, it _would_ have been staring). She had been so lost in her thoughts that she had forgotten to chew.

"Uhm… Sakura-chan?" Naruto looked a bit worried.

Sasuke didn't say anything but he had definitely seen the whole thing transpire. For god's sake, he was sitting right next to her.

Burning with embarrassment, she tried to hurriedly rid herself of the incriminating half-chewed blob. She gave it a good flick with her thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately, the angle of her attack caused the piece of meat to shoot off sideways and—'_oh shit that did not just_'—land right smack on the bento box that just also happened to be in Sasuke's hand.

Sakura's mouth dropped open in horror as she stared at her semi-chewed pink _thing _as it sat smugly on top of Sasuke's untouched bed of rice. The Uchiha was staring at it too, though his expression was hard to read.

Oh god, was that an eye twitch she just saw?

" Sasuke-kun! I'm so sor—"

She was cut off by Naruto's howl of laughter, "HAHAHAH—Teme! You totally deserved—MARGRFGLFL."

Sakura had smashed the remaining contents of her bento box into Naruto's face, "You're too loud."

Naruto sputtered as he wildly tried to brush his face clean. "SAKURA-CHAN—ARGH! I THINK I JUST SNORTED SOME RICE!"

It was at this time that Kakashi returned. He looked from Naruto, who was flailing around like a seizure victim, to Sakura who looked primed for spontaneous combustion, to Sasuke who was staring intently at what looked like a chewed up eraser on top of his rice.

Not finding anything particularly alarming about the scene, Kakashi placed the three now-full canteens on the grass in front of his students.

"All right, there's one for the each of you. Don't forget to add the iodine tablets before drinking, _Naruto_. We'll leave in another thirty minutes—oh and Sasuke, see me when you're done eating, we need to change your bandages."

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Hearing Sasuke's approach, Kakashi clapped _Icha-_Icha shut and turned his attention to the boy standing before him. Pocketing his book, he knelt down onto one knee next to the Uchiha and began undoing the bandages. "How's it feeling?"

Sasuke tilted his chin higher so that Kakashi could more easily access the binding. "Fine." He winced as the bandage snagged on a bit of raw flesh.

Ah yes, the classic teenage boy display of masculinity. Kakashi didn't even know why he bothered wasting his breath. Of course it hurt. The worst injury Sasuke had received before this point was probably a twisted ankle or a few scrapes here and there. Sparring matches at the academy were known to be monitored closely and it was rare for a student to ever be seriously injured. Actually, all things considered, he was dealing with the pain admirably well.

The last of the bandages were removed, and when Kakashi saw what lay beneath the cloth, his eye narrowed. The wounds from Haku's senbon were just starting to scab over. They were perhaps swelling a bit more than what should be normal, but that wasn't what had raised Kakashi's concern. He stared hard at the black and yellow discolorations that marked the boy's neck; those were new.

Kakashi's mind went back to the night before, recalling that there had been a moment when Sakura had been holding Sasuke by the throat. His mask hid the frown on his face as leaned in to take a closer look,'_But she really couldn't have…_'

Sasuke suddenly shifted his weight to the other leg. The movement caused Kakashi snap back to the present and begin rooting around the first-aid kit by his foot. "Hmm…well, this isn't looking its greatest. Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"

"I told you I'm fine."

Kakashi nodded. He doubted it. Although Sasuke didn't know about the bruising specifically, it was unlikely that he remained completely oblivious to them. Based off of how severe it looked, it probably hurt just to swallow.

But the silver haired man kept his thoughts to himself as he gingerly applied antibiotic cream to the wound, noting how the boy flinched whenever he touched an area that overlapped with the bruises. It would be pointless, Kakashi reasoned, to press Sasuke about the pain. In fact, it would probably do more damage than good. He figured Sasuke's ego had taken enough of a blow when he had been at Sakura's mercy; no need to rub salt into it.

Kakashi finished dressing the wound in fresh bandages and stood up with a smile, "All right, it still has a while to go until it's properly healed, so take it easy for a bit. And say something if it starts hurting more than usual."

Sasuke looked at Kakashi as if the man had just asked to give him a daily update on what color underwear he was wearing. "Yeah. Sure." Then he stalked away to where the rest of his teammates were readying to leave.

As soon as Sasuke's back was turned, Kakashi's cheerful façade fell away, revealing the somber expression beneath. His attention turned towards Sakura who was packing her bag a bit farther off. It would have surprised him if he had learned that his most…delicate student had managed to strangle anyone. The fact that it was Uchiha Sasuke of all people made it even more unbelievable.

However post-trauma nightmares or not, the fact of the matter was that she had throttled Sasuke and the blackened skin on his throat was proof enough. The severity of the bruise raised another uncomfortable question: Had she really intended on killing him?

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**Author's Notes:**

1. Many thanks to **closetbookworm, pei-chan, SakuraUchiha44530, phoenixfire211, C.A.M.E.O.1 and Only, Unisawr, RainyGlassWorld, Misery's-Toll, PockyPaint, TigerLilyette, man-chan, BriBri, xXNinXGalXx, **and **nonashley **for taking the time to review. Honestly, you guys gave me so much motivation. Whenever I was struggling with a writer's block I'd just read all your reviews, get this goofy-ass grin on my face and forced myself through the mental constipation. _Seriously._**This chapter is for you guys.** I wish fanfiction would let me do that side-ways "v" thing so I gave give you guys a side-ways-v-3-heart thing. But seriously, thanks again. Even though I don't like considering myself a review whore, I'm not going to lie, I always get weirdly happy when I click my inbox and see "Review Alert" as a message heading ;) you all know what I'm talking about right? hehehe).

2. Thanks to **Abhorson **and **Yamatenshi **for mad beta skills.


	3. Butting Heads

**note1_** for those of you who've been following this story for a while, I've made a few changes to details. The most important of which is probably when Sakura's about to punch the lights out of Sasuke, Kakashi never actually disrupts her chakra flow. So _he basically doesn't know that Sakura has monstrous strength_. Everything else is minor.  
**note2_**in chapter 1, Sakura's confrontation with Sasuke is completely rewritten. However, aside from the style change and the point in note1, everything else is the same so it's not necessary to re-read it, unless you're just curious.

okay. Shutting up now.

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**iii. Butting Heads**

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The sun had yet to reach its peak by the time Team Seven started back on the road. Normally, Kakashi would have allowed for a longer break, but travel between Konoha and Nami no Kuni took at least two days at a quick clip, and he wasn't too keen on spending the night in the Wave Country. The country was practically a rat's nest crawling with thugs, and while Gatou had been taken care of, Kakashi was sure there were plenty who were eager to take the dead man's place.

It wasn't that their surroundings hinted at any obvious danger. The passing landscape was pleasant enough: fields of green stretched in all directions, dotted by the occasional farmhouse and livestock. The sky above was a vast open blue, empty of clouds and marred only by the occasional flash of black as swallows swooped by. It was all rather pastoral and bucolic, but Kakashi knew complacency was dangerous. They were still in foreign territory, and back roads like the one they were currently traveling were rarely maintained, making them watering holes for thieves and vagrants.

It would be almost cruel for Kakashi to take on the garden-variety bandit with any degree of seriousness, but add three upstart genin to the equation and suddenly the problem was a bit trickier. As a responsible adult (given the word "responsible" was used with much liberty) he'd rather avoid taking any unnecessary risks.

It wasn't that he thought his students were weak, far from it. Kakashi was as proud as any jounin could be after taking out two S-class ninja with only a team of three genin. Tack on the fact that all three genin came out of the fight_ alive_ (without a pinky out of place, _thank you very much) _and one couldn't help but wonder if the gods were watching over Team Seven.

But of course, Kakashi knew it was no supernatural force that had kept them all alive. That age-old adage "diamond in the rough" wasn't age-old for nothing; it was the perfect description for his team. His students each contained a great deal of untapped potential, even Sakura (_especially, _Sakura), and the fight against the mist ninja had merely drawn out their hidden strengths. It was not out of blind confidence that he believed his students could become great shinobi (and even if it was, nobody was around to point it out).

As if eager to throw Kakashi's inward acknowledgement back into his face, Naruto's voice blared loudly up ahead, effectively broadcasting their location to every thief, thug, and desperado within a mile radius.

"THIS IS SO BORRRING," the blonde complained loudly, hoping the world would hear and do something about it, fast.

Walking beside him, Sasuke turned his head away to try and put some distance between his eardrums and Naruto's deafening voice. "You're being too loud," he said in irritation.

Naruto made an unpleasant face, "Well, you're being too... _you_." He kicked at a rock by his foot, his eyes following it as it skipped a few yards ahead before skittering to a stop. Naruto watched it, hoping it'd do something cool, like blow up. When it became clear that the pebble had no intention of self-destructing, he let out a pained groan, "Are we there yet?"

Sasuke tried to ignore him, which only exacerbated the other boy's behavior.

"Hey… heeeey… hey!"

Sasuke kept his eyes on the road ahead, refusing to answer. The grim, determined look that shinobi made when they were about to undergo torture fixed itself on his face; his resolve would not waver.

Naruto sidled up to his teammate, and before Sasuke could fully grasp the situation, the blonde's breath was already hot on his ear. "HEY ARE YOU DEAF OR SOME—UGH!"

Sasuke shoved Naruto out of his personal space, "You_ moron_! Are you _trying _to wreck my ear?"

"Bastard! What was that for?"

"For nearly blowing a hole through my eardrums with that megaphone you call your voice box!" The two of them had stopped walking and were facing off in the middle of the road, bristling like a pair of dogs in the fighting ring.

"That's because you weren't responding!"

"Because I was ignoring your dumb ass!"

"What?_!_" Naruto's look of shock was quickly replaced by outrage. "Why?_!_"

"Because you're _annoying_," Sasuke ground out. He turned to walk away.

"Yeah? Well you're a bastard, bastard!" Naruto yelled after him.

The dark-haired boy continued moving forward. "Dead last."

"Girly man!"

Sasuke's eye twitched visibly.

Walking a little farther behind, Sakura watched the exchange with an affectionate tilt of her head. Six years ago she would have been exasperated at their childish exchange, but she knew better than to take their scowling expressions at face value.

Both boys had grown up isolated from their peers, and while Sasuke's seclusion was more or less self-inflicted, the end result was still the same: painful loneliness. They were desperate for acknowledgement, but hindered by a general lack of socialization and their own arrogance. They connected using the only channel they knew how to navigate: bitter rivalry. It was a little sad, but the only way her boys "got along".

_Her boys_.

Sakura was overcome by nostalgia and suddenly her heart felt like it was ballooning out, expanding until it pressed so hard against her chest that it was painful. She quickened her pace, driven by a sudden, fierce desire to run to the two and throw herself into a moment that she had always longed to go back to.

Suddenly, her smile dropped and she came to a stop, sensing a shift in the atmosphere. A hatch clicked shut over her emotions and Sakura sobered up immediately. She pulled a kunai of its holster and shifted into a lower stance, holding the blade in front of her defensively. Years of experience had taught her to heed to her instincts, and right now her instincts were warning her that there was trouble nearby.

"Kakashi-sensei—" Sakura looked behind her, expecting to see her teacher prepared for the impending fight, but the man was gone. Alarmed, her head swung left and right as she searched for him, wondering if he had wandered off the path, but the grass grew thick and tall here and she couldn't see far into it.

"Sakura-chan? Hey, what's wrong?" Naruto called up from up ahead.

Sasuke and Naruto, sensing something amiss, had stopped and turned their attention towards their teammate. Instantly picking up on her agitation, they stiffened, hands already in their weapon pouches in anticipation of a fight.

Before Sakura had a chance to explain properly, the grass near her thrashed wildly. She took a cautionary step back and tightened her hold on the knife.

"No time! Get ready, we're about—"

The grass parted and Kakashi's head popped into view, "Yo."

"—to be… attacked?" Sakura blinked hard. "Kakashi-sensei? What're you doing in there?"

"Sorry," The silver-haired man apologized as the rest of his body stepped into view, "had to take a quick bathroom break." He ran a cursory hand through his hair to comb out any remaining dead grass. Satisfied, he moved on to dusting off his flack jacket and shoulders.

The two boys deflated like balloons as they relaxed. Naruto pouted, "Whaaat? It's only Kakashi-sensei. And I thought we were going to get a decent fight, too. You really had us going there, Sakura-chan."

Sasuke just looked at her pointedly: _Right_.

"No wait, but I could've sworn…"

"Is there something wrong, Sakura?" Kakashi was looking at her now with a raised eyebrow. Or rather, he was raising an eyebrow at her drawn kunai.

Suddenly, Sakura was painfully aware of the blade she was holding in her hand, as well as the fact that she looked like she was about to take her sensei out at any second (well, make an attempt to, anyway). She tried to straighten herself as casually as possible, twirling the kunai in what she hoped would seem like nonchalance. "Oh nothing. Just… you know… making sure my kunai wasn't… um, rusty?"

"Really, now?"

"Sure! Shinobi rule number forty-six: always keep your weapons sharp!"

"Sakura, there are only thirty two rules in the handbook."

Damn it, she hadn't opened that stupid thing in ages. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Of course I know! Just testing you, sensei. Get it? _I'm_ testing _you. _It's funny because I'm the student and you're the teacher and we really should get going!" She was sweating bullets and the grin on her face was beginning to crack. She needed to make her escape soon—now. Spinning around, she marched past the boys. "Come on, guys! We still have a long way to go! Ha! Ha! Ha! Come on, everyone! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto stared after Sakura, "don't you think something's a little off about Sakura-chan?"

Yes. Ever since Sasuke met her he thought something was off. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"I thought you knew _everything_," Naruto said in a voice that implied that he really didn't think that way at all.

"Only about things that matter."

"Hey! Sakura-chan matters."

"Look." Sasuke was annoyed again. "If you're so curious just go and ask her yourself." He started walking off, hoping to put some space between himself and the blonde for the rest of the trip. The blonde merely chased after him, attaching himself to Sasuke's side.

"Do you think," the blonde's voice lowered to a whisper, "she's having her _thing_ right now?"

Sasuke turned to look at his teammate. He was just kidding right? No one could _really _be that unbelievably—upon seeing how serious the idiot was being, Sasuke just looked away; he wouldn't dignify that with an answer.

Behind them all, Kakashi remained standing in place, his one eye trained on the pink-haired girl up ahead. He smiled beneath his mask. Like he had said before, "a diamond in the rough." With that thought, Kakashi adjusted his forehead protector one last time before cracking open his favorite book and plodding after his students.

In the field behind him, a group of six men lay unconscious, hands bound and weapons confiscated. Upon awakening and struggling with their expertly tied restraints, rumors would begin to circulate about a tall white-haired creature that stalked the meadows next to Okamura-san's cornfield. If one ever had the misfortune of crossing its path: beware of its strange, spinning red eye.

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The sun sank hours before, but Kakashi continued to push his students on. The fields had given away to a forest and Sakura was having a difficult time trying not to trip over tree roots, fallen branches, and the ground in general. She was usually more sure-footed, but exhaustion was beginning to take a toll on her coordination.

After crossing over a stream, Kakashi declared the clearing nearby fit for camp. For all Sakura cared, they could have stopped in the middle of a swamp. All she wanted was to just lie down and—

"All right," Kakashi said as he clapped his book shut, "Sakura, get the fire started. Naruto and Sasuke, you two are in charge of dinner."

"What about you, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"I'll be back in a bit, have fun." Kakashi's eyes closed into arches as he smiled beneath the mask and disappeared, a little _too_ quickly, behind an eruption of smoke.

"WHAT? Where's he going?" Naruto flailed in agitation. Next to him, Sasuke remained silent with his arms crossed, though he looked more annoyed with the world than was usual. It didn't take a genius to figure out that their teacher had essentially dumped everything into their laps and fled the scene.

"Probably somewhere where he can read that book of his in private," Sakura answered with a touch of annoyance as she began to unpack her bedroll. The truth was that he was probably out scouting the area, but she was too irritated to voice such generous concessions.

"Hmm… maybe… He _is _always reading that thing. What's that book even about?" Naruto wondered.

"Sex and booze," she answered distractedly as she tried to dust out the inside of her blankets with her hands. Damn it, no matter how carefully she packed her bedroll, dirt and leaves would always somehow manage to find their way into it.

Naruto looked her way, his head cocked in curiosity, "Eh—? No way! How d'you know that, Sakura-chan?"

There was a beat. "Uhm…" Sasuke was standing with his back towards them, but Sakura didn't miss the way his head tilted towards her in interest. "Just… a guess?" She answered weakly.

The truth was, she had once asked Naruto a similar question. She wasn't interested in the book itself, but the fact that it had their normally indifferent sensei smitten was enough to pique her curiosity. At the time, neither she nor Naruto had been old enough to buy the books. Seeing, however, how Naruto was apprenticed to the author himself, Sakura figured he knew at least the general gist of it. It turned out the idiot had read the entire series. His reply had therefore been a rather graphic and detailed account of the main character's daring sex-capades with women who, judging by the description, must have had chronic back pain due to the sheer size of their breasts. There was some semblance to a plot, too, but she didn't hear it, having cut short Naruto's explanation with an angry (read: embarrassed) punch to his face.

"Anyways," she said, changing topics hurriedly, "we need to set up camp and get some dinner. I'll start  
the fire, Naruto and Sasuke-kun, why don't you two go fishing? I thought I saw some swimming in the creek while we were crossing it."

"Do we _have _to?" Naruto whined, "We don't even have fishing rods."

"Catch them with your hands then," Sakura offered.

Naruto made a face, obviously not keen on the idea.

"Hmm, you're right. I suppose that_ would_ be too difficult, even for the next Hokage."

"What? No way Sakura-chan, nothing's impossible for the great Uzumaki Naruto!" He jabbed a thumb at his chest, grinning with that unshakable confidence.

"Hah—? I don't think I can believe that," she goaded.

Sakura was teasing but Naruto's eyes gleamed with the idea of a challenge. "Hah! Just you watch, Sakura-chan! Come on bastard! Let's go!" Naruto crowed as he hooked an arm around Sasuke's neck.

"Hey, ow, let go! Don't _touch_ me!" Sasuke ducked out of the other boy's grasp.

Blissfully ignorant of the daggers being glared into his back, Naruto cheerfully made his way towards the creek. "I'm going to catch the biggest fish in the entire sea!"

"It's a _stream,_ genius."

"Whatever, same difference!"

Sakura's eyes rolled and she shook her head. _Too easy_, she thought, though there was an affectionate smile playing on her lips.

The stream wasn't too far from the clearing that they had stopped at, so Sakura could still hear their voices and the occasional splash as the boys waded through the water. She had to admit that she felt a little relieved. Knowing that they were close by kept her heart light as she worked in the darkness.

After a bit of coaxing, Sakura managed to get the tinder to ignite on her first try—a feat not even Sasuke had ever been capable of. In fact, Kakashi usually kept both Naruto and Sasuke off of campfire duty. Naruto, because giving him matches was tempting fate, and Sasuke because he thought the quickest way to light up a bunch of sticks was to let loose a Goukakyuu no Jutsu on it. (For the record, the only time Goukakyuu should be used is while either trying to burn your enemy to a crisp or attempting to light a funeral pyre in one go). After that episode, Sakura had been more or less designated to fire-lighting duties.

The flames took hold of the kindling, quickly growing into a roaring blaze. Sakura stayed crouched near the flames, lulled by the warmth. When she finally realized what she was doing, she quickly stood and shook her head free of the fog that had been gathering around it. Her other teammates had yet to return, and for a lonely moment, Sakura didn't know what to do. "Might as well get some more wood," she said unenthusiastically and hauled herself into the denser part of the forest.

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"Damn it! Ah—!" Sakura tripped for the third time, however, this time she wasn't lucky enough to find her footing again. The bundle of sticks in her arms flew into the air as she fell and landed flat on her face. "Crap," she groaned. Like an afterthought, the sticks came clattering down on her. Sakura cursed again and flopped over onto her back, choosing to remain lying on the ground in defeat.

She knew her body was exhausted, but she didn't understand why. True, they had been traveling for most of the day, but she had covered longer distances at more grueling paces. She didn't understand; this entire day should have been like a walk in the park. The last time she had been this out of shape was when she had been twelve…years…

It dawned on her then that this _was_ "the last time."

Apparently being psychologically eighteen did little to boost her physical preteen body, and if memory served her right, her twelve-year-old self hadn't exactly been a force to reckon with. Suddenly wondering what that meant for her chakra control, she held her hand out in front of her face and felt the familiar pull on her reserves as she molded them into her palm. A pale green glow hummed as it shrouded her hand in light. She cut the chakra flow and let her hand fall back to the ground—small mercies that she could still do at least _that_ much.

The musty smell of rotting leaves told her than she should start getting up, but exhaustion made the ground oddly comfortable. She rolled over and told herself she'd rest for a few minutes before standing. A small voice warned her that was a lie, but she ignored it because it made it easier for her to close her eyes and drift off.

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Sasuke was not in a good mood.

To start with, Naruto had ended up catching more fish than him with the help of that damn Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Not that he _actually _cared; competing with a loser like him was a waste of life. What _was_ annoying was listening to all those Narutos shout out how "freaking awesome" they were thirty different times. It _had _to be the moron who knew how to make duplicates of himself.

And, as if one headache wasn't enough for the night, when they returned to camp with their catch, Kakashi was back but Sakura had disappeared. _Great._

The dumbass starting going off on a spiel about "enemy ninjas" and "poor Sakura-chan" and "a rescue plan" but Kakashi, who had scouted the area beforehand, assured him such drastic measures were probably unnecessary. Guessing that she had gone off to gather more wood, he sent Sasuke out to fetch her.

Tch…what was he, a dog?

The realization that he had been chosen to go because he was more competent than Naruto (who'd probably get lost himself) didn't make him happier by much. But a teammate was a teammate so he dutifully set off with the same enthusiasm of a man with severe feline allergies searching for his daughter's cat.

He may have accepted the task more gracefully if his clothes weren't still soaked from bare-handed fishing. Or if the breeze didn't keep making his wet clothes stick to his skin. Or if his neck didn't hurt so much—wait, not hurt. It was sore. Just a little sore. And, he wasn't complaining. He was just compiling and analyzing all the negative aspects of his current situation.

He could already imagine the swooning he'd have to endure once he found the girl. Speaking of which, where was she, anyway? Based on her recently strange behavior he wouldn't have been surprised if he found her sleeping upside down from a tree or something—

He stopped and stared at the balled up figure lying a few yards ahead of him. It was dark, but not even the gloom could hide that mess of pink hair.

Okay, so maybe he was a little surprised.

He took a step towards her and stopped again. Sasuke remembered the last time he had tried to wake Sakura while she was asleep: he'd gotten a nice fist in his face as thanks. Granted, that time she was flailing around in terror, but still—keeping an eye on the sleeping girl, he reached down to pick up a long stick—a shinobi must always exercise caution. He began his approach warily, this time. Three steps later his ego slapped some sense into him. What the hell was he doing? He was an Uchiha, damn it! And she was his pink-haired teammate who clearly had Issues with a capital "I". He threw the stick aside in disgust and marched boldly up to the girl as if to compensate for the cautious behavior he had exhibited just moments before.

Looming over her, he looked down upon his sleeping teammate in disdain. Wary his ass. "Sakura," he called her name. She didn't stir. He frowned, and it occurred to him that she may actually be hurt. Crouching over her, he grabbed her shoulder and shook it with a bit more urgency, "Hey, Sakura—!"

_Crack. _

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Something grabbed Sakura and she jerked awake. She shot up, and knocked her head against something hard. "Ow!" She cried out. Hissing in pain, she pressed a hand against her throbbing skull and slowly stood up. Squinting against the darkness, she tried to get her bearings. As her eyes adjusted accordingly to the light (or rather, lack thereof), the trees began to distinguish themselves in the murk. Soon, the rest of the forest had materialized out of the darkness. Sakura's memory jumpstarted and she recalled lying down on the forest floor. She must have fallen asleep.

Something let out a groan by her foot. "Seriously, what is _wrong_ with you…"

She stepped back in surprise as her eyes darted down. "Sasuke-kun?"

The boy looked up at her with baleful eyes, a hand massaging the bridge of his nose. Sakura was about to ask him what he was doing when suddenly she became aware of her own hand rubbing the injured part of her head. The hand stopped rubbing and a thoughtful silence ensued. Finally, the penny dropped. "Oh my god I'm so sorry!"

Sakura was instantly on her knees, reaching out towards the boy, "Are you all right? Let me—"

He pushed her away, "I'm fine." He didn't bother hiding his irritation.

"Are you sure?"

Sasuke chose not to answer and hauled himself to his feet. "Come on," he dusted off the seat of his pants, "we should get going before…" He paused, feeling something warm beginning to stream out from his nose. Reflexively, he wiped it off with the back of his hand, but that did little to stem the flow.

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura kept her eyes locked on his face as she stood, "I think your nose is bleeding… a lot."

He couldn't see his face, but judging by the mess smeared across his arm, she was probably pinched his nostrils closed. It seemed to work until he tasted something metallic slide down the back of his throat. Moments later he was hacking up the backflow of his own bloody snot. He spat out the glob and grimaced.

"Here, let me take a look at it, it's looking pretty bad—"

A smack rang through the air as he swatted her hands away. Sakura flinched as her arms sprang back to her chest before falling limply to her sides. Even Sasuke was a little startled; he hadn't meant to actually hit her. He turned his head away guiltily and muttered an apology, "Thowy." Sakura was unnervingly quiet and Sasuke braced himself for the tears.

"Idiot." He felt a hand grab him by the chin and yank his head forward. "I _told _you to let me look at it." He was so unprepared for her steeled gaze that he didn't even resist as she turned his head left and right, up and down, pretending like she actually knew what she was doing.

Getting over his initial shock, Sasuke managed to collect himself enough for his pride to rush forward with a furious roar. He grabbed Sakura's wrist and ripped it off his face, "Wad do—!," he made a frustrated noise and let go of his nose, "what do you think you're doing!" Blood drizzled into his mouth but he ignored it, too occupied with his anger to care.

He expected Sakura to back-off, apologize, or at least _act_ ashamed. Instead she raised an eyebrow and looked at him like _he _was the one being difficult. "Look, if you'd just calm down and let me stop the bleeding—"

Sasuke cut her off, "You brought the first aid kit?" His temper sputtered. A first aid kit meant cotton balls, and if he could get his hands on a few of those then he would charitably overlook all of the fan girl-ing Sakura had exhibited just moments ago.

"No," she began and Sasuke's mood soured instantly, "but I can just heal it with my medical jutsu."

"Your what jutsu?"

Sakura's heart slammed against her chest as she realized her mistake. "I...uh...mean...," she flailed for an excuse, while simultaneously slapping herself mentally for being so careless. "I mean, I can just—"

"You can just _what_," Sasuke didn't mean to snap but he had little patience leftover to deal with the girl's dithering.

For a long moment there was heavy silence. Then Sakura turned away and quietly walked off towards a nearby tree. Sasuke let out an annoyed "tsk." Perfect, now where was she going? Her hands were resting against the tree trunk, her face cast downward and Sasuke's ears strained to hear whether or not she was sniffling… oh great, and he was bleeding again. Hurriedly, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and stuffed it into the leaking nostril. With his free hand he took the bottom half of his shirt and used it to wipe the rest of his face clean; for the first time that night, he was glad his shirt was still damp.

And then the pink-haired girl was in front of him again. "Here," she said, holding out a fistful of something he couldn't see.

He automatically put his hand out to take it. She dumped her offering into his palm and his eyes narrowed as he saw what it was. Weeds? He looked up at her with a flat expression. The girl had finally lost it.

"It's club moss," Sakura said, as if that explained _everything_.

Sasuke felt like the girl was waiting for something. "Thanks, I guess," he finally muttered and was about to pocket it when Sakura let out an exasperated sigh.

"Really, both you and Naruto are so helpless when it comes to this kind of thing," Sakura muttered. Before Sasuke had a chance to work himself up over being likened to the moron, Sakura took a step closer and pulled his hand away from his face. The wad of cloth he had shoved into his nose flew out as she yanked down on his shirt. "Use that," she pointed at the weeds he was fisting, "to stop that." She was pointing at his nose now.

He stared down at clump of greens in his palm. They were sagging forlornly, as was the habit of most plants after being torn out of the ground. To be honest, he didn't really feel like letting the stuff anywhere near his face, much less up his nose. Besides, how was cramming this in his nasal cavity supposed to help?

Seeing the reluctance on his face, Sakura let out another sigh before reassuring him, "Don't worry it's not poisonous. Club moss is a styptic, meaning it'll help to—"

"I _know_ what a styptic is," Sasuke said, perhaps a little childishly, as he shoved the moss up his bleeding nostril. Actually, he had no clue what it meant but for some reason, having Sakura explain it to him left a bad taste in his mouth. _Whatever_.

"It'll probably help if you sat down, you might start getting a little dizzy."

The matter-of-fact tone in her voice grated against his nerves because she was right—he was already beginning to feel lightheaded. "What are you, my doctor?" Sasuke muttered. He turned around and began to walk off. "Come on," he said impatiently, not bothering to look back, "let's get going already."

Sakura sucked on the inside of her cheek, holding back a few choice words. Honestly, she had dealt with more compliant five-year-olds at the hospital. Not to mention that she was more than just a little annoyed by his blatant dismissal of her skills. The petty side of her roared for blood, itching to take his expectations of her and blow it up right in his stupid, Uchiha face. However, Sakura knew that the satisfaction of displaying her strength was sure to be followed by questions and complications she'd rather not face.

That's not to say she had forgiven him.

After picking up the pile of sticks she had dropped, she trailed after Sasuke with grim determination. Grim determination because every step she took made it harder and harder for her to resist the urge to stomp on the ground and split the ground between his feet.

Throughout the walk, neither spoke to each other. Normally, Sasuke would have welcomed the reprieve from the usual fan girl shtick, but the silence that fell over them was stifling, not least of which was due to the dark cloud of antagonistic intent that was trailing behind him. Sasuke's back prickled in discomfort, and he felt strangely vulnerable, like there was a giant target painted on his back. It was infuriating because it was Haruno Sakura, of all people, who was making him feel so uneasy. Finally he stopped and turned to face her, "_What_?"

Sakura stared back evenly and his sharp eyes didn't miss the way her jaw twitched as she ground her teeth together. She looked like she was about to say something, but whatever it was, she let it out with a loud sigh instead. "You can probably take those out now."

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"Unless you plan on keeping those in there forever...then I guess it's fine."

Just what the hell was she talking—oh. The moss. "Right," he said and gingerly removed the wad of plants from his nose. Although the top half still felt a little moist, most of his nasal's interior felt dry. He snorted lightly a few times and was satisfied when nothing dripped out. "Thanks," he muttered as he discarded it on the ground.

"You don't have to look so pained while you're saying it." She looked amused now. _Crazy bipolar girl. _She walked past him, suddenly in a cheery mood again.

"Oi," he called after her, "where're you going, it's this way."

"I know," she called over her shoulder, "but I think there's a stream nearby."

"A stream?" What, was she thirsty? Couldn't it wait until later?

"Well, yeah," she stopped and faced him, attention fixed onto his shirt, "don't you want to get cleaned up?" Sasuke opened his mouth to tell her with a great deal of exasperation that he could do that after they got back, when she finished the rest of her sentence, "Before we meet up with Naruto?"

The words stopped in Sasuke's throat, the moron's voice already ringing in his head: _'Hahaha, what happened to your face, Sasuke? Eh—? You got a bloody nose? AH! Bastard! You did something perverted didn't you? What did you do to Sakura-chan, you lech!' _ He closed his mouth and swallowed.

Upon Sasuke's lack of protest, Sakura figured her comment had hit home and triumphantly turned to go.

This time, the black-haired boy wordlessly followed.

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**Author's Note**:

1. I don't apologize. WHATSOEVER for Sakura's behavior. *nostril flare of defiance*

2.** Reviews are a wonderful source of motivation. **I mean, this wasn't my first story to break the second chapter mark because I was feeling productive or anything…just saying.

3. speaking of reviews**.** HOMG. I love. ALL OF YOU. Seriously. My love for you guys is ETURNAL. Thank you **UchihaJennifer****, ****TheresADogOnYourHeadCo**** , ****TeenageCrisis**** , ****bonbonstarxx****, ****haliz****, ****razoxrsharpxkisses****, ****Livvy22****, ****C.A.M.E.O.1 and Only****, ****WhatChuuKnowBoutMe**** , ****brebabi101****, ****8-8 ary-chan 8-8****, ****SakuBunny****, ****aya akkaime****, ****starsandstuff****, ****tigers-and-dragons****, ****Mystik Fire****, ****EbonyCaptain****, ****bEhOld.I'mBleeding****, ****delirious0ne****, ****nomanslandvicki****, ****LittleLovesaLot****, ****meeeeeeeep, ****BruHaeven**(HOLLAAAA!)**,** and**anon **for all your reviews. I'm don't know how else to show my appreciation except to grace my stories every time with your beautiful names. I LOVE MY REVIEWERS!

4. By the way, if you don't have any pressing plans, may I humbly direct you towards the story **It's 2AM**? (and yes I am using this story to shamelessly advertise. P: )


	4. Bullheaded Fools

**note1_** Gyah! *flail* I keep seeing words glued together likethis and it's bothering me and I'm sorry! I blame the uploader-document thing-y. If you catch any and it gives you aneurysms, just give me a heads up and I'll swoop down (in?) and fix it. Mwahahaha.

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iv. Bullheaded Fools

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"Do you even know where you're going?" Sasuke asked, doubting that Sakura actually did. It felt like they were wandering aimlessly through the forest, and he began to regret having let her take the lead.

"I'm pretty sure, it's around here somewhere," Sakura assured him, "I heard it."

"You heard it," he repeated. His doubt began to harden into certainty. Lost, they were _definitely_ lost.

"I meant before, while I was collecting—wait. _Shhhhh_. Do you hear that?"

Sasuke wanted to tell her that she was the one talking, but kept quiet as he strained to listen. Just what was he supposed to—

"Ah-hah!" A victorious smile lit up her face. "I knew it! Come on, this way!" She yelled as she ran ahead enthusiastically.

Sasuke ambled after her. "Slow down, you might—"

A loud yelp cut through the air. He sighed andquickened his pace into a jog towards the direction Sakura had disappeared.

Sasuke heard her before he saw her. "Ow, ow, ow, _ow_. Damn it…"

"Sakura?" he called out.

"Sasuke-kun? Hey, down here. Careful, it's a little steep." Her voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere below. Carefully, he moved through the underbrush until his feet stopped at the edge of an overhang. He peered down. It wasn't exactly a breakneck fall, but the slope was angled steeply and the sudden drop-off could catch anyone off guard in the dark. Sasuke held his arms out to steady himself andslid sideways down the incline on his feet, coming to an easy stop at the bottom.

Sakura was sitting on the ground, covered in mud and dirt, her bundle of sticks lying haphazardly around her. She looked up at him sheepishly.

"You fell," he observed.

"Slipped," she corrected. "But, I found the stream!" She smiled proudly and jabbed her thumb over her shoulder to where, indeed, there was a large stream running behind her. "See?"

"Yes, I see."

If Sakura heard the derisive edge in his voice, she ignored it while she gathered the sticks around her and got to her feet.

"Come on," she motioned with her head towards the river, "let's get you cleaned up!" She caught sight of her arm and frowned. "Hmm, it looks like I'll have to wash off a little**,** too," she noted when she saw the mud on her elbows and forearm.

"Don't take too long. Kakashi and Naruto are probably wondering where we are."

"I could say the same to you," Sakura rejoined evenly.

Sasuke shrugged and walked past her to the bank of the stream. He pulled the shirt over his head, squatted down at the edge of the water, and was about to plunge his shirt in when he was distracted by Sakura's alarmed voice. "Sasuke-kun, your neck!"

"What?"

"Your neck," she said while motioning urgently at the area beneath her chin, "what happened?"

Sasuke brought his hand to his throat. "What are you—" he stopped when he felt the bandages beneath his touch. Oh, that. "Its nothing," he muttered and began to wash his shirt, hoping Sakura would leave the topic alone.

Sakura crouched down next to him, the bundle of firewood pressed between her lap and arms. "Hey," she said, trying to get his attention.

Sasuke didn't answer. He was cleaning his shirt with a surprising amount of zeal in an effort to tune her out.

The silence was filled with the sound of splashing water as Sasuke dunked the shirt in and out of the stream.

"I'm really sorry," Sakura finally said.

He paused, shirt still half-way in the water, and turned to look at her. Sakura avoided his gaze, the guilt palpable on her face. As to why she looked guilty, Sasuke had yet to figure out.

"What?"

"I mean, sorry about your throat… and last night," she clarified while staring at the spaces between her toes. "I had a bad dream and I woke up confused. I never meant to hurt you— "

He cut her off right there. "You didn't." Sakura looked at him now with a bewildered expression. "This is from the fight against Haku, not you. It doesn't even hurt anymore."

It took a moment for Sasuke's words to sink in and when they did, a smile burst across Sakura's face. "What? Really? Oh wow! That is _such _a relief!" She laughed, suddenly feeling lighter. "You have no idea how bad I felt about this all day!"

He snorted. "Why, did you really think that you did this?

The contempt in his voice was sharp enough to take the smile off of her face. Her eyebrows furrowed together questioningly. "Is it bad if I did?"

"Sakura, you know you could never land a blow on me during a serious fight."His voice was filled with condescendence, like she should know better.

And this time, Sakura couldn't ignore the jab at her pride.

"Is that a challenge?" she demanded. Her lips were pressed together into a thin, tight line of barely contained anger. Her green eyes bored into him as she searched Sasuke's face for signs of regret at his words.

She was grossly disappointed.

"No, Just the truth," he answered coolly. A stick snapped between Sakura's hands.

"You're saying I'm weak," she realized and the awareness didn't't please her, to say the least. It had been a long time since her ego had to put up with anyone doubting her strength. Sakura could handle him snubbing her medical skills, _fine_. But she had endured two and half hellish years beneath Tsunade to get her "monstrous strength." As a matter of fact, she had endured all of it for _his_ sake and she could forgive his belittling only so many times.

"I never said you were weak," Sasuke contended, if not a bit dismissively.

"You _implied_ it," Sakura accused.

"I didn't 'imply' anything. You're the one's who's projecting her insecurities." His tone was far too civil, considering his words.

Sakura angrily sprang up so that she could look down on him, her display of rage accompanied by the sound of branches clattering to her feet.

"You're right Sasuke-_kun_." The sneering lilt in her voice turned the usual term of affection into something more sarcastic—scornful. Bitter. "I'm just a weak, insecure little girl who's nothing but cannon fodder. If I ever stood between you and your stupid vengeance for your clan you'd just cut my arm off and run me through with a blade, right?"

Sasuke's head snapped up to face her. Something incredibly angry burned behind those coal black eyes and suddenly Sakura was back in that ravaged meadow, standing against the red-eyed man who was seeped in blood and hatred. "Shut up, you don't know _anything_ about my clan," he snarled.

"Hah, so you _are_ saying you'd do it. You _would_ kill me just to get to Itachi, wouldn't you?" Sakura was asking, but not for answers. Sasuke's eyes narrowed, not liking the certainty with which she spoke.

He rose to his feet, gripping his water-logged shirt so tightly in his hands that his entire arm shook. "Don't be stupid, I never said that!"

Sakura laughed bitterly. "Oh! What? So now I'm insecure _and_ stupid?"

"_No,_ I didn't—" He made a frustrated noise and brought a hand to his face, gritting his teeth so hard that he could feel his molars digging into his jawbone. "I _swear_, sometimes you're even more annoying than Naruto," he hissed under his breath, not meaning for Sakura to hear, but she did and his words ignited her fury; she exploded like firecrackers tossed into the open flame.

"Fuck you! At least he never abandoned team seven!"

And Sasuke looked at her like she had just grown an extra appendage. "_What_?"

Sakura froze. Her surroundings snapped back into focus and her eyes widened in horrified realization.

"Sakura what the _hell_ are you talking about?"

"Nothing," she mumbled distractedly, shaking her head like she was trying to clear her thoughts.

Sasuke wanted to press her for some damn answers, and she must have sensed it too because she took a wary step away from him.

"It's _nothing_," Sakura repeated in a louder voice. She took another step back and Sasuke suddenly thought she looked like a trapped animal: distressed and skittish and desperate. "I'm going to head to camp first. I'll see you there."

And before he could begin to even think about stopping her, Sakura spun around and ran, crashing through the forest floor, twigs snapping beneath her sandals and bushes rustling madly as she tore past them. Her heavy breaths sounded distant to her ears and she barely registered the sting of branches whipping against her. She was desperate to get away, desperate to put as much distance between her and the situation that had just conspired.

She had lost it. Six years of hurt and frustration had come raging out on their own like mad beasts and she had been powerless to stop them. Sakura hissed out loud as if she had been burned by her own stupidity.

All of her hurt, all of her anger–they should have been aimed towards the power-hungry Sasuke; the Sasuke that had left her shattered; the Sasuke who had held the point of his blade against her skull.

The Uchiha Sasuke she was with now and the Uchiha Sasuke of then were _not_ the same person.

Or… were they?

Sakura began to slow down.

She repeated the question in her head: _Were _they?

If not, then at what point had the line begun to blur between the two Sasukes? What had changed him?

Before she could delve deeper into her thoughts, she stumbled back into the camp.

"Oh good, there you are." Kakashi greeted her with a lazy wave from the fireside.

"Sakura-chan! You're back!" Naruto cried joyfully as he bounded up to her; if he had a tail it would have been wagging furiously.

Sakura tried to slow her breathing and discreetly tried to wipe the sweat off of her face. She gave him a tired smile. "Hey, Naruto."

The blonde sobered immediately when he saw her expression, his brows knitting together in worry. "Hey, are you okay?" He craned his neck to peer over her shoulder. "Where's Sasuke?"

Sakura faltered. "He's…"

"Right here."

She jumped at the sound of the other boy's voice, though she managed not to turn around.

"I'm going to bed," she announced stiffly, keeping her gaze ahead of her as she walked past her blonde teammate and towards their sleeping pallets.

"But you didn't eat dinner yet!" Naruto objected.

"Sakura," Kakashi said, "I know I've told you before, but dieting—"

"I'm not hungry, and I'm not dieting sensei, I gave up on that _ages_ ago," she assured them as she skirted the campfire and made for their sleeping rolls. "I'm just tired." Which was the truth, or part of it anyways.

"But _Sakura-chan_," Naruto protested.

Sakura kicked off her sandals and slipped into her sleeping bag. "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry," she said, trying to placate Naruto**,** which only worried him even more. It was when she pulled the blankets over her head that he was _sure_ something was wrong. He whirled on Sasuke, blue eyes narrowing as they passed judgment on the other boy: _guilty_.

"You!" Naruto shoved a finger into Sasuke's chest, flaying him with a glare full of blame and accusation. "What did you _do_."

Sasuke slapped his hand away. "What makes you think it's my fault?" He asked, clearly sounding as if he believed he had done nothing wrong, which only cemented Naruto's suspicions that Sasuke _was _to blame.

"Why you—!"

"All right, that's enough you two," Kakashi said calmly as he extracted Sasuke's shirt from Naruto's grip.

Sasuke pointed a finger at the blonde. "Don't lump me in with that idiot." There was an unspoken "he started it" hanging at the end of the sentence.

"Sasuke…"

"You definitely did something to Sakura-chan you ass!" Naruto accused, utterly convinced that the black-haired boy was guilty. Just _look_ at that arrogant face!

"Naruto…"

"Why are all her problems always _my_ fault?"

That did it. Naruto roared, lunging at Sasuke. Kakashi grabbed the blonde by the collar of his jacket and yanked him back. "Naruto, calm down," he ordered. The boy crossed his arms and bared his teeth. For some reason, Kakashi felt like he was putting down a fight between his nin-ken.

Putting a hand on Naruto's head, Kakashi spun his student around. "You, make sure Sakura's okay, and try to get her to eat something." He then turned his attention to Sasuke. "You, come with me."

Sasuke glared. "I told you I didn't—"

"It's time to change your bandages," his teacher clarified. "Come on."

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"Sasuke," Kakashi began slowly as hebegan redressing the wound on Sasuke's neck, "I know you wouldn't intentionally hurt Sakura, but—"

Sasuke cut him off with a frustrated noise from the back of his throat. Not this again. And it wasn't like he could walk away either, Kakashi literally had him leashed to the spot. Damn that clever man. "_Look_, when I said I didn't do anything, I really mean I. Didn't. Do. Anything." He enunciated the last three words because it seemed everyone around him was having trouble understanding what he meant.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Really now?"

"_Yes_," Sasuke ground out in frustration. "She suddenly started going on about how I'd kill her and accused me of leaving team seven, Kakashi, I think there's something wrong with her. She's crazy," he said.

"Don't call your teammates crazy, Sasuke," Kakashi reprimanded mildly as he began to tape the bandages down.

His student snorted. "One moment she's fine and the next she's screaming at me like I'm the devil incarnate. The hell do you call that?" Sasuke demanded.

"Hmm… a woman?" Kakashi offered, only half-jokingly.

"I'm being serious here," Sasuke scowled.

"So am I—all right, you're all done, it's getting better. Just don't touch it too much and you won't even need to visit the hospital," Kakashi said as he began to pack up the first aid kit. He then looked up and fixed his student with a hooded eye. "Just try not to upset her so much, Sasuke."

His student glowered at him in indignation. "Are you serio—"

"I'm always serious. Now, go get dinner," Kakashi said as he nodded towards the fire, making it clear that the topic was not up for discussion.

"I'm not hungry." Sasuke scowled as he stalked away, his metaphorical cape of animosity swishing behind him.

Kakashi watched him go. His three munchkins were turning out to be more trouble than he had bargained for. He had been prepared to deal with the Last Uchiha and the Jinchuriki, but he hadn't expected Sakura to come with her very own package of Issues.

He let out a weary sigh and shook his head. "How did you do it Minato-sensei?" He murmured to himself.

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"Sakura-chan, you gotta eat _something_." Naruto tried to reason with the bulge underneath the blankets. When he didn't receive an answer he squatted down and hesitantly prodded the hump with his finger. "Sakura-chan? Hey, are you sleeping? Helloooo—"

Sakura ripped off the covers and brandished a fist. "THAT'S MY _ASS_ YOU IDIOT!"

Naruto paled, gripped with overwhelming terror. He fell onto his bottom and frantically waved his hands in front of himself, trying to ward off that inevitable right hook. "AH! AH! AH! I'M SO SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO! I _SWEAR_! I SWEAR I DIDN'T—! Ow!"

He cried out more in surprise than pain as Sakura bumped the top of his head with the bottom of her fist. If Naruto had been eighteen she would have sent him flying without hesitation. However, as durable as _this_ Naruto probably was, Sakura felt like there was something innately unethical about giving a bloody nose to a twelve-year-old kid.

"Just don't do it again, _got it_?" She looked at him sternly.

"G-g-got it!" He saluted her without a trace of mockery, rigid with well-placed fear.

She nodded, pleased that he understood. "Good," she said and laid back down, "now _good night_." Sakura pulled the covers over her head again.

Naruto blinked back at her, stunned. _'Huh? Wait, is that it?' _He brought a hand to his face and moved it around searchingly, wondering if Sakura had hit him so quickly that he had missed it. When it became clear that his visage was lacking a fist-shaped indentation Naruto became certain that he had come away unscathed.

He frowned. There was _definitely_ something wrong with her. He looked over the Sakura-bump to where Sasuke's sleeping pallet was laid out beside hers. His nostrils flared in irritation. And it was probably all because of that bastard.

Suddenly, feeling empowered, he grabbed his bedroll from behind him and stomped over to Sakura's other side. He kicked Sasuke's own bedroll out of the way and set his down in the newly vacated space. Naruto then stood back up and crossed his arms to admire his handy work. Snorting with satisfaction, he crawled into his sheets, setting himself up like a blockade between Sasuke and Sakura; he'd protect Sakura-chan for sure.

Sakura, who had secretly been watching the whole thing transpire, couldn't help but roll her eyes beneath her covers. '_Seriously, he's such a doofus sometimes,' _she thought to herself, all the while struggling to keep a straight face as a smile fought to shine through her exasperated façade.

A little while later, Sakura pulled her head out frombeneath the stuffy covers and refilled her lungs with fresh air. She turned over and watched Naruto's chest rise and fall as he slept. He was on his back, mouth hanging open, a stream of drool already beginning to dribble down his cheeks.

"I'm gonna be… greatest… hokage… some… ramen…" he gurgled. A stupid grin stretched across his mouth.

Sakura couldn't help but smile back.

Her mind was still grappling with the idea of two different Sasukes, still struggling to figure out what she was supposed to do, what she was supposed to change. However, as important as this change was, it was also nice to know that some things always remained the same.

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When Sasuke returned to the fireside, he noticed three things:

First**,** some idiot had gone and screwed up his sheets.

Second**,** that idiot was right in front him, snoring away in his spot.

Third, the same idiot was sleeping diagonally with one foot on Sakura's gut and two blankets wrapped around him.

Sakura was noticeably sans a blanket.

"You dumbass," Sasuke muttered in irritation at the blonde. Hooking his foot beneath Naruto's leg, he lifted it off the pink-haired girl before kicking it aside none-too-gently. Sakura barely stirred and Naruto just smacked his lips loudly before rolling onto Sakura's pallet and cuddling up next to their female teammate. Sasuke swore the blonde was smiling.

Normally, by this point, the girl would have woken up and started screeching and clawing at Naruto like a banshee with its hair set on fire, but tonight it seemed that she was dead to the world. Sasuke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Idiots, all of them; he was surrounded.

He was contemplating whether or not to leave the two like that, especially when considering all the pretty shades of black and blue Naruto would be after Sakura woke up the next morning, when suddenly the blonde giggled stupidly and snuggled closer to the pink-haired girl. That did it.

Sasuke put his foot on Naruto's shoulder**,** pried him off of Sakura, and shoved him back over onto his own bed roll. After an aggravating game of tug-of-war for the girl's blanket, Sasuke finally just stepped on Naruto's face and managed to yank it out of the blonde's grasp. He had just laid the cover over her when the blonde muttered something unintelligible and began to rotate towards their female teammate again. Sasuke stopped him with his foot and scowled.

Was the moron _actually_ sleeping?

When Naruto wrapped his arms around Sasuke's leg and began showering it with kisses, he figured that was a "yes." After stepping on Naruto's face (again) to make him let go, he grabbed the bottom half of the boy's bed pallet and dragged it a good three feet away from Sakura's side. Satisfied that the dirt would be enough to protect her from the blonde's spooning, Sasuke straightened his own bed roll and settled in for the night.

High above them, Kakashi sat reading in the tree with his back to the trunk and one leg dangling over the side of the bough. He took a moment to look away from his book and turn his attention downwards towards his students, watching them with mild amusement. Moments passed and his interest led his eyes back to his novel. Beneath his mask he was wearing a satisfied smile, and it wasn't just because Jiraiya-sama had a way with describing the female anatomy.

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"Morning," Kakashi chimed merrily as he tore the blankets off of his students.

A chorus of groans ensued from the three children as they all immediately retracted into the fetal position, trying to escape the early morning cold. It was barely past sunrise and the entire forest was still tinted a misty blue-gray.

"If we get an early start we'll be able to get to the village before night falls." None of the genin stirred, hoping that if they stayed still enough, their teacher would think that they were dead and just move on.

Kakashi sighed heavily. "Alright, I suppose you guys can sleep in a little longer." His sharp eye caught his students all soften against their bed rolls. "I suppose just one more night sleeping outside wouldn't kill us—"

The three instantly sat up like they had hit their backs on a springboard. Kakashi was actually a bit impressed by their speed.

"We're up…" Sakura croaked.

"Augh… my face… it huuuurts," Naruto moaned, compressing his face between his hands.

Sasuke just glowered at the world, his hair an unholy mess of cow licks. He had barely gotten any sleep, having spent most of the night shoving Naruto off of him and fighting to get his blankets back. With eyes that were surprisingly red despite not having his Sharingan activated he unleashed a spiteful look upon the blonde-haired boy next to him.

Naruto responded by merely scratching his butt and yawning loudly.

"Good," Kakashi said with a nod, "then get your things ready, we'll leave right after breakfast."

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Breakfast had been a rather subdued affair, everyone still half-asleep as they ate their leftover fish. By the time they had started moving, the morning sun had burned most of the lethargy off their limbs. Sakura, however, still felt a solemn veil weighing her down.

Even when they had stopped for a quick lunch break, the feeling persisted and the nutrient blocks that Kakashi had passed out were dry and tasteless on her tongue. Back on the road, Sakura hung behind her teammates. Her eyes were on the two boys' backs, though she herself was farther away on a battlefield with crushed flowers. Without thinking, her hand strayed to her left arm, gripping it with a sudden need to know it was still there.

"Sensei, can I ask you something?" Sakura looked up towards Kakashi, who was plodding beside her. She was still getting used to having to crane her neck so high again.

Kakashi clapped his book shut, indicating that she had his full attention. After all, it was rare for his female student to ever take her attention off Sasuke long enough to even acknowledge the existence of her teacher. Actually, he had been a bit surprised that she hadn't been fawning over the Uchiha the past few days. In fact, at times, it seemed as if the girl had suddenly aged considerably in the last twenty four hours or so. Perhaps it all linked back to that fight on the bridge; maybe Sakura's eyes had finally been forced open to the real life of a shinobi, maybe she had finally decided to get serious.

They walked in silence for a while, but Kakashi didn't press his student to speak. He had heard something uncertain, almost afraid, in her voice and he guessed that whatever it was, it was heavy. Since last night and from the beginning of today she had been dragging it around—he hadn't missed it.

Finally, she spoke. "Sensei, if you were ever sent back in time, would you change anything?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You mean time travel?"

"Yeah, time travel… I mean hypothetically of course." Sakura smiled quickly to let him know she wasn't being serious, even though she actually was. "Everyone knows time traveling is impossible."

"I don't know about that. After all, there are jutsu that warp space and time," Kakashi mused. "Plus, there are still plenty of mysteries left in the world."

"So you're saying it is possible?" Sakura suddenly felt her hopes rise. If her teacher knew anything about this whole time travel thing, then perhaps he could help her out of this whole mess.

"Well I never said anything about that, but I don't see why it _can't_ be possible either."

"But if you… if you ever went back to that time when—," she stopped and remembered that Kakashi had just told her the story of Obito last year. She corrected herself, "I meant, if you ever found yourself in the past and you... you knew something horrible was going to happen to your teammate, would you try and do anything?"

"Yes." His response was so quick and given with such a cavalier attitude that Sakura felt like he hadn't actually thought it over thoroughly.

"Sensei, I'm being serious here."

"Great, because I am too," he said lightly. It seemed to be a trend for his students to be "serious" nowadays.

"But what if you couldn't stop the thing from happening?" Sakura argued. She wanted him to pin his flippant answer down with a reason.

"Well, yes, I guess there's that, but I think I'd rather know I had tried my hardest than have to live with the guilt that I had passed up a second chance to save someone precious to me."

"And, if you mess something up and things turn out even worse than before? Then what?" Sakura pushed, "Isn't tampering with fate, I don't know, against the rules of life or something?"

Kakashi stopped walking and Sakura stopped with him. He put a gloved hand on her head. "Sakura, do you remember what I told you all during the bell test?"

"You mean that one about the comrades and trash?"

He nodded and smiled. "Yes, that one."

Of course she remembered. If team seven was Home, those words would be the saying embroidered into cloth, framed, and hung up in the living room above the couch.

She waited for her teacher to elaborate, perhaps impart her with some sage advice (preferably one about saving a teammate turned homicidal), but the man just took his hand off her head, opened his book, and strolled off ahead of her.

Sakura knew anticlimac-ticy was to be expected when dealing with her teacher, but that did little to ease her disappointment. If anything, Kakashi's vague answer (if you could even call it that) only seemed to emphasize how very alone she was in all of this.

Of course, Sakura believed there to be truth to his words about taking advantage of second chances. If she could, she'd change team seven's future in a heartbeat. The problem was _how_ would she do it?

Sakura remained submerged deep in her thoughts, only bobbing up to the surface every once in a while to entertain Naruto**,** who had fallen back to chat with her. However, even the gregarious blonde eventually grew bored by her solemn front and moved back up to torment Sasuke, who, in Naruto's books, had already been forgiven for upsetting Sakura. After all, if he continued to hold a grudge against Sasuke, the rest of the journey home would be quiet and boring and Naruto couldn't think of anything more horrifying.

Sakura envied the blonde's ability to forgive and forget. She wished she could dole out forgiveness as easily as he did, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—or killed.

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Just as Kakashi had said, they passed through Konoha's gates just before night fell. The sky above them was a dark, twilight blue already pricked with stars, but the horizon was still glowing shades of burnt orange and pale yellow: residue from the sun that had set just moments ago.

"Alright!" Naruto punched the air enthusiastically, "we're finally home!"

Kakashi nodded in approval. "Good job you three. Get some rest tonight. We'll meet at the bridge after lunch at one o'clock on the dot," Kakashi said before disappearing ina puff of smoke. And just like that, with very little fanfare, team sevens first B-ranked mission was officially complete.

"I'm going to hit up Ichiraku tonight!" Naruto announced loudly and then turned to Sakura shyly, "Do you want to come Sakura-chan?"

"Huh, what?"

"I'm going to Ichiraku do you… you know, want to come? With me?"

"Yeah sure," Sakura answered, more out of habit than anything else.

Naruto's arms went flying into the air as a victorious grin stretched hugely across his face. "_Yes! _I finally got a—"

"It's not a date," Sakura cut in, sounding well versed with those words. Naruto deflated and Sakura sighed at the boy's forlorn expression. "I mean, it's not a date unless you're paying," she amended.

"Wait, so we are going? Together? Like a _date_ date?"

"Yes Naruto, like a _date_ date."

His blue eyes lit up like a carnival. That ridiculous smile was back and Sakura grew a little concerned that the boy might start to float away any second.

"How about you, Sasuke-kun? Do you want to come too?"

There was an almost audible thud as Naruto crashed back to Earth.

"No, not really."

The blonde was soaring again.

"Fine, suit yourself." Sakura shrugged, looking more resigned than disappointed. "Come on, Naruto, let's go."

"Kaaay Sakura-chaaan!" he practically sang as he levitated after her.

As Sakura and Naruto separated from Sasuke, the black haired boy couldn't help but glance over his shoulder and wonder when the two had gotten so close. Then he scowled, annoyed by the fact that he had even bothered to care in the first place.

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Ichiraku was such an old establishment that even six years back into the past did little to change to the place. The stools were still wobbly and the scuffed, wooden countertops still giving off that same funky smell of spilled broth and cleaning rags. Teuchi-san, who never seemed to age, welcomed the two young genin with his usual cheer.

"Naruto! It's been almost two weeks since I last saw you here! I was starting to get worried!"

"Hah! That's because I was away on a dangerous mission!" Naruto said, chest puffing out proudly. "We took out two S-class nin! I was so freaking awesome that I'll probably start to get loads more missions, so start getting used to not seeing me around as much old man!"

The ramen stand owner took the young boy's bragging with stride. "Oh, really?" He winked at Sakura, who couldn't help but smile back at the good-natured man. "Well then, to ensure that you do come back every once in a while I better give you a special service. Two miso-pork ramen, on the house!"

"Awesome! Wait, no! You can't I have to pay or else it won't be a date!"

Teuchi looked back and forth between a panicked Naruto and an exasperated Sakura and then smiled. "Got it. Then next time, eh Naruto?"

The blonde nodded enthusiastically. "You know it old man!"

"Are you sure you even have enough money?"

"Yeah! Gama-chan is nice and fat today," Naruto assured Sakura, pulling out his wallet to show her. Sakura had to admit that the frog looked plumper than usual. Twelve-year-old Naruto had probably yet to spend his allowance on porn.

Sakura followed that line of thought to memories of Naruto's older counter part. She wondered what the blonde was doing now—later? In the future? She wasn't sure which one was the right word to use.

Time travel was a bitch.

And speaking of time travel, what was she supposed to do about Sasuke? She still hadn't figured it out.

Her ensuing sigh was so heavy that it was a wonder her stool didn't snap under all the weight. Despondent, she rested her chin on the wooden countertop, bemoaning her current state of affairs.

"Hey, is something wrong Sakura-chan?"

Her sight shifted sideways and up to look at Naruto, who was frowning back down at her. Sakura found it in herself to still smile a little. Who would have expected that this kid would grow up to be one of the world's most powerful and respected shinobi.

As of now, he sounded like a prepubescent brat (which he was) and his shoulders looked too scrawny to be capable of bearing the title of Konoha's Hurricane. However, those blue eyes were as steady and unwavering as they would be in six years time.

Perhaps he was already stronger than she gave him credit for.

"Naruto, if…" she tried to phrase her problem so that Naruto could comprehend it. "Say you knew someone that you wanted to make a bond with, but that person was didn't want to make a bond with you. What would you do?"

"Oh that's easy," the blonde grinned. "I'd just keep trying until the guy acknowledged me."

"And if he doesn't?"

Naruto shrugged. "He'd have to, eventually."

It occurred only to Sakura then that they were talking about the same person. "What if he ends up hating you for it?"

"Who cares?" Naruto shrugged and his grin was full of reckless confidence.

Such a bullheaded answer would have normally incited an eye roll from Sakura, but she was reminded that between the both of them, it was Naruto who had managed to forge the stronger relation with Sasuke.

And suddenly she was grinning with him. Yes, perhaps it all really did come down to persistence. "You're right Naruto, thanks." She raised her voice, "Teuchi-san! Change of order! Can you please make it three miso-pork ramen to go?"

"Sure thing!" Teuchi called out from a cloud of steam.

"Wait, _what_?" Naruto shrilled.

"Don't worry, I'll pay for the third one," Sakura assured him.

"But, but, but," he stammered as he grappled the empty air with his hands as if trying to hold together the date that was quickly falling apart before his eyes. "Who's the third one for?"

"Here you go! Three miso-soup ramen to go!" Teuchi said cheerfully as he placed the plastic bag in front of them.

Sakura thanked him and placed the money on the table as Naruto grudgingly shelled out his own cash, noting with disappointment that Sakura had paid for her own dinner.

"Come on Naruto, let's go."

"Where are we even going?" he grumbled as he sullenly trailed after Sakura, still miffed that his date had been ruined.

Sakura's lips quirked up into an amused smile as their dinner swung idly from one hand. "We're going to go be stubborn, bullheaded fools."

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* * *

**author's note**_

1. many thanks to _Abhorson_ who beta-ed this and the reviewers whose words continue to convince me that this story is worth writing, despite my own conflicting opinions. **My reviewers: I LOVE YOU! **(as some of you may have probably already discerned from my borderline maniacal replies).

2. I know its kind of slow going right now but, please, bear with me. I promise things will begin to pick up very soon.

3. And yes, I know, my NaruSaku is playing peek-a-boo, but don't fret, despite what it looks like this is _decidedly_ (italicized for Emphasis) SasuSaku. The summary does not lie.

4. As always and forever: reviews/concrit/emotional outbursts are more than welcomed.


	5. Head First into Trouble

**v. Headfirst Into Trouble**

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Sasuke opened the door of the refrigerator and peered inside. The shelves were bare**,** and he mentally kicked himself for forgetting to stop by the market on his way home. He pulled open the top, middle, and bottom drawers, hoping to find a forgotten stash of something edible. Empty, empty, and empty.

Irritation steadily growing, he scanned the shelves one last time on the off chance that a steak had spontaneously appeared (no such luck), and slammed the door shut.

After two days of travel, he had been hoping to come home to a decent meal. There weren't any restaurants in his neighborhood and the market was too far to be anything less than a hassle.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and shot the refrigerator an accusing glare. He liked to think that the machine shivered just a bit.

In the silence, Sasuke began to wonder whether he really should have declined Sakura's invitation to eat, but stopped his thoughts before they got too dangerous. He had been looking forward to eating a quiet dinner, emphasis on the quiet.

Ichiraku was always loud at night, and dealing with his idiot teammates would probably have resulted in a migraine.

He unconsciously bobbed his head in agreement with himself. Satisfied with his reasoning, he casually ran a hand through his hair, frowning at its oily consistency. He brought his hand in front of his face and sniffed. His face involuntarily scrunched up in disgust; he needed a shower.

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When they reached the apartment complex**,** Naruto's spirits lifted again.

"Ohhh! Is this _your_ place**,** Sakura-chan?" He asked with a stupid smile plastered across his face.

Sakura rolled her eyes**,** the plastic bags in her hands rustling together as she began to make her way up the stairs.

"No**,** Naruto, I live on the other side of town."

"Oh." The blonde deflated as he began to follow after her. "Why're we here**,** again?"

"This is Sasuke-kun's house."

"WHAT?" he squawked behind her. "What're we doing at the bastard's place?"

Without slowing, she held up the bags in her hand. "Dinner."

"_What!_"

Sakura sighed and stopped, turning around to face him. "We. Are. Eating. Dinner. Toget–"

He waved off the rest of her sentence with his hand.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got that part. I meant _why_? He said he didn't want to eat with us remember? This is stupid!" Naruto had grudgingly been grateful to Sasuke for refusing to eat with them. But now, the black-haired bastard was pushing his arrogant face into the picture again. How much of an obnoxious idiot could someone be?

Sakura tried to stay patient with her blonde teammate. "Listen Naruto, we're all going to have to learn how to get along better. Remember what Kakashi-sensei said about teamwork?"

He didn't look impressed. "I still think it's stupid."

"Naruto, just _try_ and get along. This is your team too," Sakura reminded him.

"Whatever," he answered sulkily, still put out by the fact that his date had been ruined.

She sighed in defeat and continued up the stairs.

"I thought the bastard lived at that fancy pants Uchiha mansion area," he muttered when they were standing in front of Sasuke's door.

Sakura went ahead and rang the doorbell. "No, I think they cordoned that place off after...what happened. He lives here now. Besides, I don't think Sasuke-kun would've wanted to stay there anyways, too many bad mem– "

"Cordoned?"

Right. Small words. "It means they roped it off so people can't really go there anymore."

"Oh." He took a moment to process the information. "So how do you know where he lives?"

Sakura stiffened. "Um, I…"

Naruto's blue eyes stared back expectantly. Damn, he was always sharp at the worst times. Fortunately for Sakura, she never had to answer. The door opened and Sasuke peered out with a towel to his head. For a moment, he looked surprised when he saw them, but his expression quickly fell flat.

"What?"

Ignoring the cold edge in his voice, Sakura smiled and lifted the plastic bag.

"Hey Sasuke-kun! Naruto and I thought it'd be nice if we all had dinner together as a team!"

"What? I didn't say–OOF! Auuugh..." Naruto groaned, hugging his stomach where Sakura had delivered a swift blow with her elbow.

Ignoring Naruto's wheezing, Sakura watched with hawk's eyes as Sasuke's gaze flitted from Naruto to her, and then finally to the bag in her hand. Just when she thought he was going to concede, Sasuke stepped back into his house and began closing the door. "No thanks, I'm not hungry–" He paused when the door stopped against something. He looked down; Sakura's foot was jammed in the doorway.

He looked back up at her in disbelief. Did this girl have no shame?

"Did you eat dinner already?" she asked sweetly, the saccharine smile still hanging doggedly on her face.

Sasuke should've lied, but he was thrown off by the girl's brazen attitude. "What? No, I–"

"Great! Then there's no problem with all of us eating together!" And then Sakura proceeded to shove her way into his house.

By this point Sasuke had regained his senses. He put his weight against the door, using it to pin her against the doorframe. "What the _hell_ do you thing you're doing?" He demanded.

"Well, seeing as... you're not inviting... us in… I decided to be helpful... and let. Myself. In–_ugh_! There we go!" she exclaimed triumphantly when she finally managed to wriggle her way into the apartment.

Sasuke slammed a hand against the wall to block her entry with his arm. "If you take one more step, Sakura, I swear…" He left the sentence hanging, but the threat was clear in his narrowed eyes.

The pink haired girl seemed less than impressed with the extended limb and ducked under it. "Oh come on, Sasuke-kun!" She spun around to face him. "You even said it, yourself! You haven't eaten yet! I bet you're starving after that trip."

Sasuke opened his mouth to vehemently deny his hunger, when his stomach seized the opportunity to let out a very loud, very drawn out growl.

The smile on Sakura's face turned smug. Sasuke glared down at his stomach, wishing he could cut out the traitorous organ.

"Can we stop standing around and just eat? I'm starving!" Naruto complained from behind them. He swatted aside Sasuke's arm and made his way into the house.

"Get out, dumb ass," Sasuke commanded, despite knowing full well thathe was fighting a losing battle.

"Hell no! I'm even hungrier than you are bastard! It's _your_ fault I had to walk all the way over here just to eat. Now, where's your kitchen?"

"It's this way!" Sakura chimed as she took a right down a short hallway.

Naruto followed after he and cheered. "All right! Ramen time!"

Sasuke stood alone by the front door for a moment, his mind stumbling to catch up with what had just happened.

What had just happened?

The microwave buzzed to life in the kitchen as Sakura presumably began reheating the noodles. "Hey, bastard!" Naruto's voice blared down the hallway, "where the hell do you keep your chopsticks?" Sasuke heard his cabinets being opened, pots and pans clattering together, and then cabinets being slammed shut.

Resigning himself to this ill-fated circumstance, he shut the door and sighed heavily **in** grudgingly conceded defeat. World: 1, Sasuke: 0.

He turned around and made his way towards his teammates.

"They're in the drawers!" he called loudly in an attempt to curtail Naruto from dismantling his kitchen.

"What? I can't hear–"

"Naruto! Get off the countertop!" Sakura scolded.

"But I'm trying to find the–"

"Off the countertop. _Now_," she commanded.

He scrambled to oblige, though he was still fixated on finding the utensils.

"But I can't find the chopsticks!" He whinged.

Before Sakura could give him an earful, Sasuke strode in. He walked past the both of them and yanked open a drawer, pulling out a handful of chopsticks. He gave Naruto a pointed look.

"Dumb ass, who keeps chopsticks in cabinets?"

"Hey! This isn't my place, how was I supposed to know where they were?"

"Where do you keep _your _chopsticks? Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to know."

"For your information bastard, I don't own any, so hah!"

Sasuke began setting the table. "So you eat with your hands... why am I not surprised?"

"Naruto can you get some water in these?" Sakura pulled three glasses out of the cabinet. "Sasuke-kun, where do you keep the bowls?"

"Second cabinet over."

"I don't eat with my hands! I just use disposable chopsticks," Naruto shot back from the sink where he was filling up the cups. "Unlike you, Sasuke, I don't enjoy doing girly jobs like washing dishes–_ow! _Sakura-chan!" Naruto pressed a hand against the ear Sakura had just tweaked.

"No sexist comments," Sakura decreed. Then the microwave dinged and she clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "All right! Food's ready!"

Forgetting about his throbbing ear, Naruto pumped his fists in to the air. "Yeah! Let's eat!"

When Sakura turned around with the tray of bowls, Naruto and Sasuke were sitting at the table, waiting. The corners of her lips curved into a soft smile.

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Dinner was expectedly loud. Naruto and Sasuke got into a competition over who could down their meal the fastest. Sakura was somehow roped into refereeing. The stakes were high: loser did the dishes.

Sasuke was half way through his noodles when Naruto slammed his empty bowl on the table. "Finished!" He punctuated his proclamation with a drawn out burp.

Sakura examined his bowl. It was astonishingly spotless.

"Looks like Naruto won. Sorry Sasuke-kun," she apologized when she saw her other teammate's face. The black haired boy looked like he was trying to unleash his sharingan upon his bowl of ramen. It didn't help that Naruto was shamelessly gloating, either.

"Hahaha! Didn't you know bastard? _No one_ can beat the great me when it comes to ramen eating! Have fun washing the dishes!" He called as he raced out of the room.

Sasuke stood up. "Where the hell are you—"

"Cannonball!" Sakura and Sasuke heard Naruto's voice ring down the hallway and then heard a muffled thud as he belly-flopped onto the living room couch.

Sakura shook her head and smiled after him. Next to her, Sasuke snorted. "Idiot's going to wreck my house."

She placated him with a smile. "I'm sure your property will be fine."

She began stacking the bowls together when Sasuke took them from her hands. "Leave it." Ignoring her questioning glance, he took them to the sink and ran the faucet.

She hovered around him. "Hey, are you sure you don't want help... with…" her words trailed off when Sasuke turned and gave her a dark look. His ego had taken a hard hit after his loss to Naruto. In his male mind, accepting outside help for his penalty only magnified the defeat.

Having enough sense to notice his bristling pride, Sakura quickly disengaged herself from the situation. "Right, I'll just be in the living room with Naruto, then."

Doing the dishes wasn't too horrible of a task, there weren't even that many, to begin with. Actually, Sasuke found that it could even be satisfying, especially when he pretended the bowl he was viciously scrubbing away at was the face of a certain idiotic blonde.

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"Ugh, the hell is all this crap?" Naruto muttered as he rifled through Sasuke's movie collection. He pulled out a random videotape from the shelf. "What's this? The Desert Hawk: A Documentary," he said, reading the title aloud.

Sasuke walked into the room, shaking the water off his hands. "What're you doing now, dumb ass?"

"Looking for something to watch," Sakura explained from the couch.

Naruto spun around and held up the videotape with a disgusted look on his face. "Hey Sasuke, what's this crap? I wanna watch a movie, not some lame, old man's show."

"Who said you could stay over and watch?" Sasuke said**, **but he plopped down next to Sakura, regardless.

"Well it's not like you even have anything good, anyways." Naruto returned to thumbing through the video collection. "Hmm… wait, what's this? _Piercing Heaven's Sky_**…** Hey bastard, is this one any good?" He held out a boxed VHS.

It was one of Sasuke's favorite. "It's okay," he muttered.

"All right! Let's do this then!" Naruto popped the movie in and hit the lights, scrambling back towards his teammates. He predictably threw himself down next to Sakura, accidentally knocking the pink haired girl into Sasuke.

"Ow! Sorry Sasuke-kun, ugh, _Naruto_."

"Huh?" The blonde turned and looked at her cluelessly. "What?"

Sasuke smirked, waiting for her to box the idiot across the ears for being too close. He was surprised when she just rolled her eyes and turned her attention back towards the television. He looked at her from the corner of his vision, searching her face for signs of anger or disgust, but she was already absorbed in the movie. Was that really it?

Sakura breathed out heavily, content, and settled deeper into the couch between the two boys.

Yeah... he guessed it was.

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_Piercing Heaven's Sky _turned out to be documentary on a species of pine tree found only in Fire Country's most northern mountains. Naruto had an aneurism once he figured it out, and though she didn't say anything, Sakura wasn't exactly jumping for joy either. Sasuke pointed out that Naruto could just go if he didn't like it, but with Sakura making no signs of leaving, the blonde just grumbled darkly to himself and stayed put.

The film was long, and two hours later Sasuke woke up to the sound of the narrator's voice. He realized he had fallen asleep and groggily looked to the left to check on his teammates. Naruto was out like a rock with his head knocked back and his mouth hanging wide open. A trickle of drool was slowly progressing down the side of his chin. Between them, Sakura was curled up against Naruto, her head pillowed against his chest. They looked peaceful together, chests rising and falling in sync. Sasuke stared at them unblinkingly, his flat expression unreadable.

After a long time, he reached over and shook her. "Hey, Sakura. Wake up."

A few shakes later, she groaned awake and sat up on the couch, swaying a bit before she righted herself. Cracking her eyes open, she looked at him blearily.

"Sasuke-kun? Ugh... sorry, I think I fell asleep."

He just nodded in response.

She looked over at Naruto and muttered "idiot," before shaking her head in exasperation. But Sasuke didn't miss her smile, and once again found himself staring hard at his two teammates.

Despite Naruto's valiant attempts to stay asleep, Sakura finally managed to get him to open an eye after some rather persuasive cheek yanking. He muttered an incoherent complaint as she pulled him to his feet and herded him out of the living room and down the hallway, Sasuke bringing up the rear. Still half asleep, Naruto plodded forward mindlessly, and despite Sakura's best efforts, walked into the wall multiple times. Somehow they managed to get him to the front door, and after exchanging hurried goodbyes, Sasuke closed the door on his teammates.

He returned to the living room and shut off the television, plunging the room into darkness and quiet. Tired, he sat on the sofa and stared into the gloom, listening to the silence.

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The sun was still low in the east when Sakura walked onto the bridge at 7:00am sharp. The air was damp from the morning fog and the sky directly above her was a midnight blue. She was the first to arrive, but that was to be expected. Whether it was time travel or the end of the world, punctuality was one of those habits she'd be hard pressed to give up. Having figured beforehand that she'd be waiting a while, she leaned back against the bridge's railing and dug into her pack to pull out a book. She had found it on her bookcase last night and, being unable to recall the plot, but remembering that she had enjoyed it when she had read it, prompted her to bring it along.

Fifteen minutes later into the story, when the geisha Shizuka finds her lover dead within a bamboo thicket, she heard Sasuke's footsteps thunk across the wooden bridge. He stopped a few feet from where she was standing and turned to lean against the railing as well.

She looked up and gave a quick wave. "Morning!"

He grunted back in response.

Her cheerful smile crumbled into a disapproving expression. "Come on, what kind of hello is that?"

He glanced to the side to catch her eyes before returning to stare out at the stream. He remained silent.

Sakura rolled her eyes at his pig-headedness. "_Anyways_, last night was fun, yeah?"

He snorted. "More like annoying."

She smacked him on the shoulder with the book and he snapped his head in her direction, looking even more irritated than usual. "The hell was that for?"

"Oh, come on!" She was prodding him with the book now, grinning as she ignored his darkening glower. "Admit it, you had a good time!"

He smacked the novel away. "Like _hell_ I did."

This time it was her turn to snort. "You know, all that built up denial in your system is going to give you an ulcer one day."

He deadpanned. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

She retracted the book and reopened it to the part where she had left off. The conversation felt like it had been cut short, and she dove back into the story, her tiny spiteful side hoping to leave Sasuke squirming in the uncomfortable silence. However, if the Uchiha was bothered by the heavy atmosphere, he didn't let it show.

The sun climbed steadily higher in the sky and the quiet was quickly filled in by the noise of the stream rushing past beneath them and the occasional rustle of leaves as a stray breeze wandered by. The awkwardness between the two had almost completely dissolved, and when Sakura said, "It was a good team bonding experience," she said it without looking up from her book. "I think we should do the dinners more often."

Before Sasuke could tell her what a waste of time that would be, the sound of Naruto's hurried footfalls interrupted him. The blonde sped past him and parked himself in front of Sakura. "Good moooorning, Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke noted that if the idiot had a tail, it would've been wagging furiously.

"Good morning. You're late." Sakura sounded annoyed, but the corners of her lips were curling upwards.

Naruto grinned back sheepishly. "Ahaha, yeah…. uhm... I forgot to set my alarm? Ack! Sakura-chaaan!" He wailed when she bopped him on the head with her book.

"You mean you _didn't_ set your alarm," she corrected.

With his original strategy foiled, Naruto attempted a different approach. "Aw, come on Sakura-chan, it's not like Kakashi-sensei's ever on time—Ack! _Sakura-chan_!" She had brought the novel down on him again, and Naruto covered the crown of his head in an attempt to ward off any further attacks.

"Just be glad this is paper back," She said.

Off to the side, Sasuke stared up at the empty morning sky. His teammates' chit chat faded until it became nothing more than background noise.

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Kakashi was the last to arrive. After the customary exchange of excuses and criticism, Team Seven set out to receive their next mission.

Inside the Hokage's office, the Third sat behind his desk and took a long draught on his pipe as he studied the three genin standing before him. His eyes lingered on the girl—what was her name again? Haruno Sakura?—who was staring at him as if he had just risen from the dead. Strange.

He blew out a thick plume of smoke, a smile ghosting across his weather-beaten face as he addressed the three children. "So, I hear you all took down a few S-class ninja, eh?"

"Haha, you bet, old man! That guy was no match for me! I pounded that sucker into the ground!" Naruto bragged as he pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and flexed his arm. Sakura observed how it only served to highlight how scrawny he actually was.

"Stop lying," Sasuke cut in, "you fainted. Twice."

Naruto whirled on his teammate and jabbed a finger at him. "What? I... uh... well what about you? You were passed out like a pansy 'til the very end!"

"Now, now…" Kakashi intervened halfheartedly.

"That's because I was busy protecting your knocked out ass," Sasuke pointed out.

"What! I wasn't knocked out, I had my eyes closed for like a _second_."

"Fainted," Sasuke maintained.

"Argh!" Naruto cried out in frustration, and directed his finger jabbing at Konoha's venerated leader. "Whatever! My point is, old man, this next mission better be super awesome or else it'll just be a waste of my talent!"

Behind his team, Kakashi brought his palm to his face.

The Hokage drew in another lungful of smoke as he endured Naruto's buffoonery with practiced patience. Sakura took advantage of the lull in the conversation to smack her blonde teammate in the back of the head. Either the girl was stronger than she looked or Naruto had horrible balance, the Hokage couldn't decide, but the boy ended up falling flat on his face with a squawk of pain.

"Well, I'm pleased to see you all made it through in one piece," the Hokage said as tendrils of smoke wafted out of his mouth and nose. "As for the next mission, well I suppose you all will find it to be—"

"Bad ass?" Naruto offered with excitement blazing in his eyes.

"Challenging," the old man rectified.

"All right!" Naruto whooped, already picturing the harrowing battles in which he'd prove himself to be the prodigy that he _obviously _was.

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The esteemed wife of the feudal lord (or the That One Fat Lady, as Naruto referred to her) had lost her precious cat again. Much to Naruto's chagrin (and Sasuke's, even though he'd never let it show), Team Seven's mission was to recover the renegade animal and return the poor creature to his owner's fleshy possession.

It was an all too familiar task that usually took at least half the day to complete. However, by the grace of Sakura's quick thinking, they managed to track down the feline within the hour with the aid of a rather large bag of catnip. Drunk on the scent of the plant, Tora remained docile in Sakura's arms as they returned to the Hokage's office to bring the creature back to its unfortunate fate.

Mrs. Feudal Lord was ecstatic, the cat was throwing a literal hissy fit, and Team Seven was just glad that it was over with. Outside, Kakashi officially dismissed them before disappearing himself. The three milled about in front of the building, the rest of the day looming before them. It had been a while since they had any free time (Sakura had been running graveyard shifts at the hospital for the past two months) and were unsure of what to do with it.

It was Sasuke who broke away from the group as he turned to leave. "I'm going to go home," he announced to no one in particular.

Sakura frowned as he began to peel off. "Wait! Sasuke-kun, why don't we all grab lunch together?" She suggested.

He turned to fix her with an annoyed expression. "If you have the time to bother me, you might as well spend it practicing your jutsu. Frankly, you're ability is below Naruto's."

"Hey—" Naruto began to complain, but his voice was overtaken by Sakura's.

"Hey!" She barked, matching the Uchiha's stare evenly with unwavering green eyes. "You keep telling me that my jutsu needs work, but frankly I think the _real_ problem here is your lack of teamwork!"

Sasuke held her gaze for a few seconds so that it wouldn't look like he was running away when he spun back around to go. "I don't need something as stupid as teamwork," he threw derisively over his shoulder.

She ground her molars in frustration as her glare drilled holes into the back of his retreating figure. _Oh no he didn't_.

Next to her, Naruto looked like he was about to ask her out on another date when she grabbed his wrist and ran forward.

Too shocked to even try and keep up with her, Naruto lagged a few steps behind as he stared at their interlocked hands, blushing furiously. "Whooa-aaah! Sakura-chan! This is a little too fast!" He was referring to the hand holding.

As she approached Sasuke, she slowed her pace down just enough so that she could thread her arm through his—capture complete—and rocketed forward again.

It took Sasuke a moment to figure out what had just happened. When he did, anger flashed through his eyes as he dug his feet into the ground. "Damn it, Sakura! Let me go!" He shouted as he twisted violently to get his arm out of her hold.

Sakura slowed her pace a bit, but her grip remained as unyielding as a steel trap. "Sorry, can't do that."

"Can't do it, or _won't," _he snarled.

Sakura knew she had a tiger by the tail, but she had dealt with worse. "Is eating with us that unbearable?"

"_Yes_," he spat back, imbuing his tone with all the venom he could muster.

She seemed unimpressed as her shoulders lifted and fell in a small shrug. _Sucks for you. _

"Man, just leave the party pooper behind Sakura-chan, and then the two of us can—"

"No," Sakura answered before Naruto could finish voicing his suggestion. She led her boys down the street, both trailing after her. One looked like a lovesick puppy and the other appeared to be having a horrible case of indigestion.

"I'm surrounded by dumb asses," Sasuke growled, the embers of his anger still glowing red.

Sakura looked over her shoulder, about to point out how he was being the stupid one for making such a big deal out of _lunch_ when she ran smack into something—someone?

"Augh!" She cried, more in surprise than pain, stumbling a few feet back before loosing her balance and falling. Unfortunately for Naruto and Sasuke, they went down with her, ending up as collateral damage.

Landing on his face, Naruto groaned through a mouthful of dirt. Sasuke, who was laid flat on his back, propped himself up on his elbows and glared daggers at his female teammate. "Hey! Are you blind? At least watch where you're going!"

"Sorry, sorry," Sakura muttered, sounding more annoyed than apologetic. Rubbing the back of her head, she looked up, ready to apologize to whoever she had run into. When she saw who it was, however, all she could manage was a surprised "oh."

Hair the color of rust, milky jade eyes, and a perpetual aura of bloodlust: Sabaku no Gaara.

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**author's note_**

Well there you go. After over half a year, this is what I manage to crank out (please don't be too disappointed! And if you're not...yay!). I actually wanted this chapter to be much longer, but that would take additional time and since everyone's been yelling at me get on it with, I figured I might as well post earlier with less than post later with more. Seriously though, for everyone who's been telling me how much you love this story and how you've rabidly expressed your desires for it to be continued, I DO IT ALL FOR YOU GUYS. (less than three!)

Really though, whenever I re-read past chapters, I can't ever stop my eye from twitching and I wonder "HOW CAN ANYONE LOVE THIS?" but I guess that's a pretty normal mindset for any writer.

Not to worry, though, I'll never quit Return&Rehash. My writing style is always changing, and I'm always wanting to fix EVERYTHING I EVER WROTE but I've learned to (grudgingly) accept the story's flaws and continue forward with it. It's kind of become that really uncool friend you had in middle school and now that you're in college, it's still pretty uncool, but you've been friends for so long that it's become endearing.

Yep. In other words… I'LL NEVER GIVE UP ON THIS STORY! Yes. College has taught me wonderful things. Like how to make really lame metaphors. Sortofnotreally.

Reviews and CIVIL Concrit is always WELCOME AND APPRECIATED!


	6. A Different Approach

**note 1**_props to _Wishtly_ for managing to sit through my first draft and all its eye-cringing errors. Mega-props for then having the patience to correct them in addition to pointing out flaws, cruddy descriptions, etc. You're awesome. Plus I know you beyond the computer screen which just makes it _très_ awesome.  
**note 2_**dedicated to those who've been yelling at me to get on with it. Yes! Your voices are heard!  
**note3_**there is no note 3. I'm just being obnoxious.

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**vi. A Different Approach**

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Throughout the years Suna had proven to be an indispensable ally to Konoha. The Kazekage's friendship with Naruto was extended to the Leaf and the two villages flourished beneath each other's support, though it hadn't always been so. The Sand Sibling's cold demeanor reminded Sakura that before Naruto had managed to beat the humanity into Gaara, relations between Konoha and Suna had been rocky at best. This was a delicate situation; one wrong move and they all could soon be staring at the inside walls of Gaara's Sand Coffin.

"I'm really sorry about that," Sakura said, scrambling to her feet offering an apologetic smile. "I should've been more careful about where I was going."

Sasuke muttered darkly behind her, something about "apologizing to the wrong people", as he rose in a more dignified manner. By his feet Naruto merely groaned into the dirt, making no effort to rise.

Sakura didn't look back at her teammates, her entire focus dedicated to the stoic redhead standing before her. Her smile belayed her anxiety; she knew what a powerhouse Gaara had been as the one-tail's container (her future-self had still had the scars from that Shukaku mishap). Even with Tsunade's tutelage and years of experience Sakura doubted she could take on the twelve year old if he went on a rampage. The tricky part was, she wasn't even sure what would set him off. With his propensity for wanton violence, he was as unpredictable as he was dangerous.

"Really, really sorry about that," she apologized again, still smiling doggedly despite her uninterested audience. Gaara's face remained impassive, making no indication that he had heard her. Next to him, Temari hadn't even looked up from examining the dirt beneath her nails.

"Ch, Leaf nin really are such cowards," Kankuro observed, eyeing Sakura with open disdain.

Naruto, who by this point had recovered onto both his feet, decided he didn't like the tone Kankuro was taking with Sakura. "Hey, watch your mouth," he bristled.

Kankuro's attention flitted from Sakura to Naruto. An amused smirk pulled up the corners of his mouth when he took in the scrawny blonde, instantly pegging him as one of those loud-mouthed idiot types. "And if I don't? Are you going do something about it?"

"Kankuro," Temari drawled without looking up, "leave the brat alone."

"What? I didn't do anything to the shrimp."

"I am not a shrimp," Naruto fumed.

"Naruto, calm down," Sakura murmured over her shoulder, but her words were drowned out by Kankuro's mocking voice.

"You're right, you're right, you're too small to be a shrimp. I'd say you're more of a munchkin."

"The hell did you say, fat ass?" Naruto yelled, striding forward to confront the boy. He managed two steps before shouting out abruptly in surprise. His feet were suddenly yanked out beneath him and the sky flashed into view. Before he had time to process what was happening the back of his skull cracked hard against the ground and his vision exploded into into a dizzying kaleidoscope of red, black, and white spots. He groaned lowly, stunned by the pain.

"Naruto!" Sakura ran to his side, throwing herself onto her knees beside him. "Are you okay? " She placed a concerned hand on his chest. "Hey, can you hear me? Answer me if you can. What's your name?"

"Uzumaki Naruto," he slurred. "Konoha's next Hokage."

One eye cracked open as he offered her a weak smile. Sakura's worried features broke into a relieved grin. "Good, you're conscious. Do you hear ringing in your ears?"

"A little."

The corners of her smile slipped into a frown. "Do you see stars?"

"Do white spots count?" Naruto suddenly squeezed his eye shut and pressed a hand to his head. "Augh...someone make the world stop moving," he moaned.

Sakura's frown deepened. She pushed his hand away from his face and pried open one of his eyes, examining it clinically. "I don't have a flashlight on me but, I think you might have—," She checked the other eye. "Yup. Definitely a concussion."

"Dumb ass," Sasuke said, the insult lacking its usual bite.

"Shut up," Naruto lamely threw back.

With a twitch of his fingers, Kankuro detached the chakra string he had fixed on Naruto's foot. "Brat can't even move without tripping over himself. You sure you're a shinobi?" He laughed.

The hand on Naruto's chest curled into a fist and her tender expression hardened. She rose, turning towards Kankuro. "I think you should leave now," she coldly instructed.

"Oh?" He cocked his head, looking more entertained than threatened by her sudden change in attitude. "Or what?"

Or I'll beat you until you're the same shade as your face paint, she thought darkly.

Her keen eyes caught Kankuro's hand twinge and something flashed through the air between them. She felt a light tug at her ankles and looked down. The chakra string glinted in the sunlight; almost invisible unless you knew what you were looking for.

"I'm kind of liking it here. Lots of weak brats to play around with, if you know what I mean" Kankuro waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially. He was trying to incite her wrath, unaware that the pink haired girl was already primed to uppercut the snot out of him.

Sakura drew her kunai from its holster and in the same, fluid motion threw the knife forward. As the blade flew it sliced easily through the chakra string then speared into the ground just inches away from Kankuro's toes.

"Well playtime's over, so get going," Sakura bit out between her teeth grinding.

Kankuro's eyes narrowed at the severed chakra line before they flicked back up to Sakura to reassess her. "Actually, I think it's just getting started," he said, smiling like he'd just discovered an extra ryo in his back pocket. The amusement in his eyes were gone, replaced by something darker, colder, crueler.

"No, nothing's starting," she said firmly, determined to keep the situation from escalating any further. "So I suggest you get going, Kankuro-san. I'm sure you have more important things to do like polish your puppets."

As soon as the last syllable had rolled off her tongue, she knew she had said something wrong. Kankuro's eyes grew wide before his brows furrowed together as he regarded her with suspicion. "Hey princess, who the hell told you about my puppets?" He growled.

Her temper flared at the demeaning name, but it was quickly snuffed out as the rest of her grew cold with the realization of her mistake. The other two Sand Siblings took a sudden interest in her. Temari finally looked at her for the first time and Gaara, who had been staring uncaringly at some birds on a telephone wire, zero-ed in on her like missile-homing device. She involuntarily took a step back, feeling uncomfortable under the boy's intense scrutiny.

"Hey," Kankuro snapped impatiently at her silence. With three swift strides he closed the gap between them, standing close so that she was forced to look up at him. "And who told you my name?"

"Uhm…" Sakura tried.

He grabbed her roughly by the collar of her dress. "What do you mean 'uhm'." He shook her angrily. "You leaf trash have been spying on us haven't you?"

As she absentmindedly wiped his spittle off of her face, Sakura wondered how she'd salvage this one.

"Hey fat ass," Naruto snarled as he propped himself up on his elbows, "let her go!" Before he could try and come to her rescue, Sasuke was already by her side.

He grabbed Kankuro's wrist and gave it a sharp twist, forcing him to release Sakura. He pushed her back behind him, and locked glares with the other boy. "Like she said, I think it's time for all of you to leave," he coolly advised, crushing Kankuro's wrist in his grip.

Kankuro snatched his hand back. "Shut up! Not until your little princess tells me how she knew my name and about my puppets."

Sakura's fists trembled against her self-restraint; what she would give for a nice, clean hook straight to his jaw. She thought of her time in Suna and the hours she ground away in the emergency room trying to save his life from Sasori's poison. Granted this was after the whole Sand Sibling Reformation thing. Still, it irritated her to be treated like dirt by someone who's life she had once tried so hard to save. The ungrateful brat needed some respect pounded back into him. Her animosity must have been rolling off her in waves because Sasuke suddenly looked over his shoulder and gave her a meaningful glare: stay back.

Which, of course, just made her want to shove him aside and show him How It's Really Done.

Sasuke however, simply read her scowl as reluctant compliance and turned back around. He regarded Kankuro with that special brand of Uchiha haughtiness, eyeing the other boy as if he was piece of gum he'd just scraped off the bottom of his sandals, or like the stains in an unwashed toilet bowl.

"It's not a puzzle. You tripped Naruto using chakra strings, so you're probably a puppet user. Taking that into consideration, it's easy to guess what those things strapped to your back are. Your name? That girl over there called you by it." Sasuke finished with a Grade-A Asshole smirk. "Any decent shinobi should have the analytical ability to figure out that much, Kankuro."

Despite Sasuke's clear logic, Kankuro looked as if his dead mother had just been insulted (it was probably the smirk). "You little punk—"

"Kankuro," Gaara cut him off. His voice was soft but it shut Kankuro up immediately. "You're a disgrace to the village."

"But Gaara—"

"Shut up or I'll kill you."

Sasuke's hairs stood on their ends as massive wave of bloodlust surged from the redhead, crashing into all of them with the force of a tsunami. His heart rate picked, body tensing as it instinctively prepared for a fight. Behind him he sensed Sakura stiffen as well. Her sandals rasped against the ground as she uneasily shifted her stance, the shuriken in her hip pouch chinking together as she placed a cautionary hand in the bag.

Kankuro raised his hands in submission. " You're right. I was out of line." He was apologizing, but Sasuke thought it was more like he was trying to calm a wild animal.

"Come on Gaara, he said he was sorry," Temari said, nervously looking back and forth between the two boys on her team.

Ignoring his spooked teammates, Gaara turned his attention towards the Leaf nin. Sasuke's hands warily strayed towards his kunai holster as the redhead appraised them with his strange eyes.

"Sorry about my friends." he said flatly.

"Those are Suna's forehead protecters," Sasuke observed. "What're you all doing here?"

"It's probably the Chunin exams," Sakura answered.

"Chunin exams?" Naruto asked, having managed to sit up. He showed little sign of being concussed and given the demon fox in his stomach, Sakura suspected that by tomorrow night he'd be over the head trauma entirely.

"It's the exam they have every year for Genin to take a crack at becoming Chunin," she explained. "Shinobi that qualify come from all over the nations to the village where it's being held. I guess this year Konoha is hosting it."

"Hey cool! I want to take the Chunin exams too!" Naruto announced excitedly. As he sat cross-legged, his eyes gleamed as he imagined sweeping the competition and being so freaking amazing that the old fart had no choice but to step down and hand him the title of Hokage. Uzumaki Naruto: Youngest Hokage to ever become Hokage. Yeah, he could dig it.

"Hah!" Kankuro's voice blared through his daydream. "Trash like you would die before you even got to the second round. I'd make sure of—"

He was cut off as something cracked loudly against his forehead protector. He yowled in pain and ripped back his hood as if it had burned him, smacking his hand against his forehead. At first Sasuke thought Gaara had done something to him. Behind him, he heard Sakura snort with satisfaction.

Keeping a hand pressed against the tender spot on his forehead, Kankuro bent over and snatched a grape sized stone from the ground. Pinching it between his fingers, he lanced his arm forward and held out the offending pebble. "All right, which one of you brats threw this?" He demanded.

Sasuke's glanced back, catching Sakura's smug expression. Unfortunately, Kankuro had spotted it as well. "You little bitch," he hissed. Tugging his hood back on, he unhitched the mummified puppet from his back. It landed on the ground with a heavy crash, kicking up an ominous cloud of dirt. The cruel smile on his face promised no mercy for the pink-haired girl and Sasuke didn't like it. Things were quickly becoming dangerous; he knew he could handle himself, but trying to cover Naruto and Sakura at the same time would be more trouble than the actual opponents. What's more, he could feel Sakura actually trying to get past him. Unbelievable. He was sure cows had a better sense of self-preservation. At least they knew when they were being led to the slaughterhouse. He raised an arm to stop her and threw a glare over his shoulder. "Idiot, what're are you doing?" he hissed.

"Me? What're you doing?" She hissed back, clearly annoyed.

"Saving your life," he ground out, then turned his back on her before she could argue. He spoke directly to Gaara, having realized that the boy with the gourd was the one calling the shots. "Why don't we save the fight for the Chunnin exams? It'll cause less problems, and I'm sure the last thing you'd want is trouble in a foreign village."

Gaara didn't answer, silently contemplating the three Leaf shinobi before him. When he finally spoke, it was as if he hadn't even heard Sasuke. "You. What's your name?"

"Me?" Naruto asked, excited by the prospect he'd have an Evil Arch-Nemesis (Sasuke was just a Rival, which everyone had. Not everybody had an Evil Arch-Nemesis, and on top of that he was foreign. Super. Awesome.)

"No, the girl."

Naruto's face fell (though nobody could really understand why), and Sakura's screwed up with bafflement. "Me?" She pointed to herself to make sure Gaara was referring to her. There was always the possibility he was confusing Sasuke as female.

"Yes, you. What's your name."

"Sakura…It's Haruno Sakura," she said warily, as if her name was the key to unlocking all her secrets and weaknesses. Through she sounded nervous, Gaara was inwardly impressed when she met his eyes and didn't flinch. He was aware of his unnerving gaze, but the girl gave no ground, looking back evenly with the cool confidence of an experienced fighter. The black-haired boy appeared to be the ring-leader of their little gang, but Gaara knew that the dog with the loudest bark didn't necessarily have the fiercest bite.

"I'm Sabaku No Gaara...I'll be looking forward to seeing you at the Chunin exams," he said, appraising her like a cut of meat at the butcher shop. Sakura saw a glimpse of something dark and predatory behind his jade-green eyes, its tail flicking with impatience as it lay in waiting. She felt like there was giant target being drawn on her forehead.

"Come on, let's go," Gaara ordered. Kankuro was obviously upset about having his fight cut short, but with one look from Gaara, he was immediately cowed. He shouldered his bandaged bundle and shot a fearsome scowl at Sakura to make up for the fact he couldn't break her leg. Or arm (honestly, he would have been happy with either). She retaliated by sticking out her tongue. Kankuro looked like he wanted to say something but the wind was already kicking up at his feet, swirling around as it wrapped him and his teammates in a fierce storm of dust and leaves, drowning out any words or insults that may have left his mouth. When it died down, the three Shinobi from Suna were gone.

Sakura's tongue was still hanging out when Sasuke whirled on her, his expression as dark as thunderclouds. "What was that?"

She sheepishly retracted her tongue like a child caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar.

"Are you stupid?" Sasuke demanded.

"What?"

"You could have gotten yourself killed," he snapped. Sakura wondered how it was possible to tell someone you were worried about their livelihood and still sound like an arrogant bastard.

"I wasn't going to get killed. You're being dramatic," she scoffed.

"This isn't a game, Sakura. If you're not serious about being a Shinobi then leave your Hitai-ate home and don't come back," he said.

Sakura considered whether she should smash Sasuke's nose into his brain with an open-palmed thrust or just kick him in the balls. Then again, the options didn't have to be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, before she could decide, he was already slinking off, leaving her to deal with her pent up rage alone.

Sakura stamped her foot and let a frustrated snarl rip through her. That arrogance! It must be store bought or something because there was no possible way for so much pretension to occur naturally in one human body. She took a rock and hurled it at a nearby tree. It hit with a loud thud before it plopped to the ground. The leaves rattled on the branches and a few even fell off and spiraled down in a lazy descent. Nothing blew up or burst into flames, leaving her wholly unsatisfied and somehow even more pissed off than before.

"I'm going home!" she said.

"No lunch?" Naruto asked meekly, finally speaking up.

"I'm not hungry. At. All."

"Oh. Okay. Bye?"

He then glumly watched her storm off. Yet again his date with Sakura-chan had been foiled thanks to Sasuke. He had remained silent during the heated exchange between his teammates for tactical reasons. Naruto figured if the bastard wanted her to hate him so badly, then hey, he wasn't going to stop him. Actually, he had hoped the situation would've panned out a bit more differently. He had imagined Sakura crying in his arms about what a bastard Sasuke was, and after the two of them would go for some ramen at Ichiraku's (like a date date) and then maybe do something later, like toilet paper Sasuke's house.

He hadn't foreseen this: him sitting alone in the middle of the road, twiddling his thumbs and of all things, wishing Sasuke and Sakura would just stop fighting.

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Kakashi was on his way home with a bag of groceries swinging idly from one hand while the other kept his nose happily buried within the pages of Icha Icha. It was still early in the afternoon and the sky was blue, the sunlight mild, and a breeze was threading lightly through his hair. He had no students or mission scrolls. All he had was the rest of day sprawling out before him in its marvelous, untouched, virgin glory. It was too good to be true. Which was why he wasn't surprised when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the messenger hawk circling high above him.

He stopped and looked up from his book to get a better view. The ends of a bright red ribbon fluttered behind the bird like a kite's tail. The raptor sounded a sharp, keening cry and Kakashi acknowledged the bird with a lazy two-fingered salute. Though the hawk couldn't have understood the gesture, it suddenly banked to the left and shot off to the east, presumably to continue its roundup duty.

Red ribbons— a Hokage's summon.

Kakashi looked away from his book and eyed the plastic bag in his hand. Maybe he could take his groceries back to his apartment first and then— no, no, he probably shouldn't be late to this meeting.

He reluctantly clapped his book shut, pocketing it in his hip pouch. After biting his thumb to draw blood, he quickly executed a series of hand seals and bent over to touch his bitten hand to the ground. A cloud of smoke erupted from beneath his palm. Kakashi straightened and when the smoke cleared, a silver-coated dog with a mohawk sat on it's haunches before him. The ninken scratched at its ear with a hind leg and flashed his summoner a wolfish smile.

"Kakashi," it greeted while still trying to get at the itch behind its ear. "Ah—thanks, finally," the dog said, eyes closing with pleasure as Kakashi scratched the troublesome spot. When he was done, the canine gave himself a good shake and sat down. "So, what's up?"

"Shiba, I have a meeting I need to run to. I need you to take my groceries back to the house," Kakashi said as he held out the bag.

"Finally starting to grow out of that habit of being late, eh?" The dog said dryly as reached for the bag with its muzzle.

Kakashi chuckled, "Not exactly. You can just leave it on the counter and take a few biscuits from the jar, thanks."

Shiba nodded, causing the plastic bag between his teeth to rustle.

Kakashi watched the dog bound off towards his house for a little while before turning to go. He sprang onto the roof of a nearby store, pausing long enough to blink and get his bearings before his body flickered and disappeared. He shot across Konoha's rooftop system like a silver-haired arrow, his passing presence going unnoticed by the civilians below.

He wondered what the meeting was about. Well, it is that time of the year, he mused as the roof tiles clinked underfoot.

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"I'm home," Sakura called from the front door of her home as she kicked off her sandals.

Her mother rushed out of the kitchen. "Sakura! Where have you been? Do you know what time—my lord, child! What happened to you?"

"I was just...training," she said, suddenly aware of how filthy she was in relation to her orderly living room. Her legs were gray with dried mud from the lake and the crimson of her dress was muted rust-red by the thick layer of dust and silt. Her hair was pulled up into a disheveled pony tail while her forehead protector hung limply from her neck as if it had slipped down from her head and she had been too lazy or tired to retie it (she had been too tired). Sakura could almost feel the dirt and sweat radiating off her like gamma rays, polluting the carpet and furniture with her grime. Unconsciously she wiped her cheek with her arm as if to try and clean herself, but all it did was transfer the dirt from her arm to her face.

Haruno Rika appraised her daughter with pursed lips. "Training?"

"Yes, okaa-san. Training," she repeated wearily. "Is 'tou-chan home?"

"No, he's still at the hospital; he'll be back late tonight. Wash your feet off with the hose before you come in, I just vacuumed this morning. What do you want for dinner?"

"Anything's fine. I'm going to shower before I eat," Sakura said as she stepped barefooted outside. She grabbed the hose off the front lawn and turned it on. The water felt cold and impossibly good as it cascaded onto her tired feet. She wiggled her toes beneath the running water, catching the tick and snap of stiff joints cracking. She heaved a heavy sigh and looked up at the stars pricking the nighttime sky.

After her tiff with Sasuke that afternoon, Sakura had stormed off with violent thoughts buzzing around in her head like a hive of angry wasps. En route to her house, she had happened to pass by the training fields and had spotted a cluster of makiwara sticking out of the ground. Without thinking, she had made her way to the wooden training posts, making quick work of them. Five monstrously-strong punches later the five makiwara had been reduced to piles of toothpicks. Then she had begun chucking explosion tag after explosion tag at the trees with mechanic efficiency, her face as blank as her thoughts as she watched the trees explode into thick, black columns, roiling with fire and ash, their trunks groaning as they crashed to forest floor. Wood chips and embers had rained down on her and when she had finally run out of tags, she had seamlessly moved on to blowing the trees apart with her bare fists. However it had quickly become evident that her current chakra reserves were insufficient to raze the entire land so she had begun to run and run and run.

She had run across the lake, through the fields, until she had reached the fence that marked the end of training ground 10 and the beginning of training ground 11. Then she had run through training ground 11, and then training ground 12, then 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, until finally the setting sun had turned the sky a burnt orange and she had fallen to her hands and knees in training ground 21. She had been breathing dangerously hard and fast, her heart hammering against her chest like an angry fist against a wooden door. Sweat had dribbled down her face as her arms shook with the effort to support her, and eventually they had crumbled beneath her, leaving her shuddering in the dirt as her shredded throat had desperately tried to rake in as much air as it could. The world had spun crazily and she had clamped her eyes against it. Even in the darkness she felt the ground see-sawing beneath her as her ragged breathing grew farther and farther and farther away.

I'm going to pass out, had been her last thought before she did.

After some time, Sakura had woken to the sound of crickets and frogs. It had become dark and when she rolled over onto her back, the sky had turned a sable-blue and a thick curtain of stars had been pulled across it. She lay there for a long time, silently watching the pulsing lights from the cosmos as the cool breeze flowed over her back on Earth. A small voice had told her that her mother was probably waiting so she stiffly got to her feet and had slowly plodded back home in a daze, her thoughts as vast and empty as the universe she had just seen.

Even now as she turned off the hose and returned to the house and went upstairs, she felt oddly subdued. In the bathroom she gripped the sides of the sink and wearily peered at herself in the mirror. She looked like the cold, blacked nub of a candle wick that had been left burning for too long. In the bathroom light, she noticed her hands for the first time. The tender skin around her knuckles had been flayed open, a thin crimson scab already forming on some of the wounds. She grimaced not in pain, but in annoyance with her own body. She raised a hand to start healing herself, then stopped and lowered it. No, she'd keep those as reminder.

She returned her attention to the twelve year girl in the mirror. The girl looked back with tired eyes that looked old and misplaced on such a young face. What was she fighting anyways? Time? Fate? The universe? All three were considerable opponents. Then there was the question if she was even fighting in the first place. If she didn't do something soon, then the future, or destiny, or god, or whatever it was would win, but how could she defeat something she couldn't even see? She knew Sasuke needed to change, but it was clear he was willing to do that right after he hopscotched down the marketplace in a dress and pigtails. He was the proverbial horse who had drunk the whole trough before being led to water, the stubborn prick.

Sakura's mouth went crooked with an irritated scowl at the thought of the Uchiha. She pulled out her pony tail and her hair didn't fall to her shoulders as much as it flew apart, renegade clumps rebelling against gravity with the help of dirt and dried sweat. She combed her fingers through her hair, trying to tame it before she hopped into the shower. Suddenly, her eyebrows furrowed together as her hands slowed, dragging her finger carefully through her pink locks. When she reached the ends, she pinched the tips of her hair and pulled it taut to see where it hit: waist length. Her green eyes lit up as if they'd been struck by lightening.

Maybe she should approach this whole "change" thing from a different angle.

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**author's** **notes_**

1. So yes, my idea of a cliffhanger is Sakura staring at her hair (it's okay, I'm judging me too).

2. Things are moving along at the speed of frozen molasses. Wheeeee. I promise it'll start to pick up soon.

3. Then again, my personal idea of "picking up" might differ slightly from yours so don't expect anyone to die or anything anytime soon. (I swear, it's all for the sake of that vague term we authors just love to throw around when there's a lull in the plot: DEVELOPMENT)

4. Thanks to those who've somehow managed to stay with this story (and my general non-updating ass) AND KOW TOWS TO ALL MY REVIEWERS. Love you fools~


	7. Throw Down

**vii. Throw Down **

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Naruto rubbed at his gummy eyes and let loose a jaw-cracking yawn as he plodded down the dirt road. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he burrowed his head into the collar of his jacket and squinted against the early morning sunshine, suddenly envious of turtles who could retract their heads completely into the dark recesses of their shells. Regrettably, all he could manage was to tuck his chin in and leer out from beneath his unholy mess of blonde hair. The sun was too bright, his feet were too heavy, and he just wanted to stop, curl up on the ground, and go back to sleep.

Mornings weren't never really Naruto's forte, and this one especially was looking to be a doozy. Normally by the time he had made his way out of his apartment door, the fresh air and sunshine were usually enough to launder out his sleep. Today, however, the red bridge was already in his sights and he still felt bedraggled.

The wooden bridge clunked underfoot as Naruto dragged himself to where Sasuke was waiting. He threw himself back against the railings and sighed loudly. Across from him, Sasuke stood leaning against the opposite railing with crossed arms and closed eyes. Naruto regarded him with the same look he'd use to inspect the bottom of his sandals, and for a long while their silence was filled by the calling birds and the low roar of the river rushing beneath their feet.

Naruto slowly swung his head left, then right, before turning his attention back to Sasuke. "Hey, where'd Sakura-chan go?"

Sasuke opened an eye as if noticing the other boy's existence for the first time, and then closed it again. "She isn't here yet."

Naruto's brow knitted slightly. "What do you mean? She's always here first."

Sasuke's shoulders rose and fell in a disinterested shrug. Naruto scowled at his teammate's response and kicked at the wooden ground. A hollow thunk rang out.

Sasuke opened his eyes again. "What?" He asked, irritated.

Naruto kicked the ground again. _Thunk_. And again. _Thunk_. "Well you're the one who told her to quit yesterday."

Sasuke snorted. "She's just late."

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. _

_"_Would you quit that?" Sasuke snapped.

Naruto shot him a glare, but gave it a rest. Instead, he pointedly turned his back to the other boy and draped his arms over the railing, staring down into the river below. "Man...what a crappy morning," he complained loudly, "and my head still hurts…"

Sasuke felt the corners of his mouth turn downward in distaste, but he capped his irritation and closed his eyes, trying to settle back into his nap. Much to his chagrin, however, no matter how hard, or how many times he tried to push it away, Sakura's face persistently nudged against his thoughts.

Naruto was right; she was always the first to arrive, and Sasuke admittedly had thought it was strange when he had arrived first onto the empty bridge. Throughout the past few months, Sakura had established herself as the one soul on Team Seven that actually gave a rat's ass about being on time. Not even Kakashi, who seemed to have a deep-seated aversion to punctuality, paid attention to his own announcement that Team Seven would meet 7:00 a.m. on the bridge. It was as if Sakura was trying to overcompensate for Kakashi's chronic tardiness by being borderline fanatical in her own punctuality.

He remembered once when a restless night had prompted him to give up on sleep together and he had decided to show up early instead. It had been 5:45 am and the street lamps had still been on, buzzing overhead as he made his way past the dark windows of closed shops and sleeping homes, his breath clouding up the brisk morning air. A few stars had still doggedly hung onto their places in the sky, even as the horizon had begun to lighten in the east. When he had crested the small hill, he had spotted the bridge at the bottom and paused; Sakura was already there with her back to him, quietly staring up at the pre-dawn sky.

Pretty soon Sasuke had come to expect—though, not necessarily look forward to—his mornings to start with a headful of pink hair and an excessively exuberant, "Good morning Sasuke-kun!" Now that the girl who was always earlier than early was late by an entire hour, it would of course be stupid of him _not_ to take note of it, and he wasn't stupid. However, he dismissed the idea that he might have had a finger, much less a hand, in Sakura's lateness; it wasn't like he had welded her front door shut.

His thoughts continued to go back to their argument yesterday and his parting words to her: _"This isn't a game, Sakura. If you're not serious about being a Shinobi then leave your Hitai-ate home and don't come back." _

_"Leave your hitai-ate home and don't come back." _

_"Don't come back." _

The small frown on his face twisted into a grimace, and his hand gripped his arm tightly.

"Idiot," he gritted out under his breath.

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The sun slowly climbed higher in the sky, and when Kakashi sauntered on to scene at around his usual time of 8:30 a.m. Sakura had yet to make an appearance.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted with a raised hand.

The two boys ignored his greeting, both embroiled in their own thoughts. Noticing the heavy atmosphere, Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Something the matter?" He looked around. "And where'd Sakura go?"

Sasuke flinched at his words—something that didn't escape Kakashi's attention. Naruto, who had still been dangling his arms over the railing, lifted his head to give his teacher an irked look. "Stupid bastard-pants Sasuke told her to quit being a shinobi."

Sasuke harrumphed. "I didn't tell her to quit. I told her to give up if she wasn't serious about being a shinobi," he said, perhaps a little defensively.

"That's the same thing!"

"I didn't force her to do anything. She had a choice and she chose not to come. I'm not responsible for that."

Naruto clenched his fists and grit his teeth, clearly thinking otherwise. Kakashi, looking more hassled than anything by his students' bickering, sighed wearily and massaged the back of his neck to ward off an impending headache. However, instead of addressing what Naruto obviously thought was an urgent issue, Kakashi held out two sheets of paper. "Here."

"Huh? What're those?" Naruto asked.

"Yesterday I nominated you three for the Chunin Exam. These are the application forms, well actually they're more like release forms—"

"The Chunin Exam?! Sakura-chan was talking about that yesterday!" Naruto said excitedly. He snatched one and began pouring over it. He skimmed carelessly over words like "lethal" and "hazardous" and "possible death". What really caught his attention were the large letters at the bottom that decreed: "CHUNIN EXAM APPLICANT #070723: UCHIHA SASUKE".

"What?!" He squawked indignantly. "Why did they put the bastard's name here?!"

"Because that's not your application form," Kakashi said. He plucked the document from his hands and handed him the other sheet. "Here. This one's yours."

Naruto's eyes jumped to the bottom: "CHUNIN EXAM APPLICANT #071011: UZUMAKI NARUTO"

"All right!" He whooped with joy and launched an exuberant hug at his teacher. "Kakashi-sensei! I love you!"

"Seriously, please stop that," Kakashi said as Naruto dangled from his neck. After prying the blond off he dusted off his jacket and handed Sasuke his document. "Of course, this exam is non-compulsory. If you wish to take it, sign the paper, and turn it in at room 301 at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. That is all."

Kakashi disappeared with a muffled pop, leaving a cloud of ashen smoke in his wake. Naruto was still floating on cloud nine, eying his application with a silly grin pasted across his face. Sasuke was the only one out of them who had realized that Kakashi had completely slipped around the subject of Sakura.

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Haruno Asaka opened his front door and squinted against the late morning sun. "What?" He muttered gruffly at the stranger who's doorbell ringing had finally roused him from his sleep. He had a long night at the hospital yesterday and if it was some door-to-door salesman hawking his crap he'd—

"Morning, Haruno-san I presume?"

"Uh yeah, who's asking?"

"I'm Hatake Kakashi, Sakura's sensei."

The reply was enough to bring Asaka's groggy thoughts to attention. Keeping one hand on the threshold and the other on the door knob, he appraised his daughter's teacher with sharp green eyes, making no move to invite the other man in. Kakashi stared listlessly back, acting oblivious to the scrutinization. After a considerably awkward length of time, Asaka dropped his hand from the doorjamb and stepped back away from the entrance. "Come on in," he invited gruffly.

"Thank you," Kakashi said with a respectful nod before taking off his sandals and entering.

He shut the door behind him and—a habit of his being a shinobi—took stock of his surroundings. He was standing in a living room with a white sectional and a glass coffee table set out in front of it. Beside the couch a bookshelf housed a huge collection of brick-thick volumes, and even without checking Kakashi knew the titles were alphabetized. Everything from the decorations to the furniture was clean, crisp, and tasteful. The beige carpet beneath his feet had been well kept, and his sharp eyes couldn't find a single stain on its surface. He supposed Sakura's penchant for perfection stemmed in part from growing up in such a orderly home.

In stark contrast to the tidy living room, Haruno Asaka looked as rumple as the bedcovers he had just risen from. Raking a cursory hand through his mess of spiked, salmon-colored hair, his hand then slipped down to scratch at his unshaven chin. "Well," he said, still rubbing his 9 o'clock shadow, "I supposed you're here to see Sakura-chan. She's still asleep, but I'm sure she'd want me to have woken her up by now anyway. Come on, follow me."

Asaka led Kakashi up the flight of stairs, limping on his prosthetic leg. When they reached the front of Sakura's bedroom door he looked over his shoulder. "Oh yeah, you thirsty or something?" He belatedly asked.

"No, I'm fine. Thank you," Kakashi declined.

"Good, we're out of juice and tea anyways. Rika went out to go buy some groceries this morning...or at least I think that's what she said. I don't know, it was too early for me to hear properly."

Kakashi simply nodded as he patiently listened to the other man ramble. There was a pause between them as Asaka sized him up again, though this time there was less hostility behind his gaze. Kakashi thought the other man was going to say something, something unrelated to beverages and perhaps a bit more serious. Whatever the words were however, they were lost in Asaka's heavy sigh. He turned back around, twisting the knob slowly as he cracked open the door. "Sakura-chan," he whispered, as he stuck his head into the dark room. "Are you awake?" When there was no answer he raised his voice. "Sakura-chaaaaan, come on princess!" He sang cheerfully. "It's time to get up!"

Kakashi waited respectfully behind him. If the silver-haired man had any reservations about Haruno Asaka's daughter complex, he hid it well. Kakashi heard a low moan escape from the room, followed by the rustling covers.

"Come on Sakura-chan," Asaka chirped as he crossed the room to throw open the curtains. A burst of light flooded into the room and Sakura hissed before retracting beneath her blanket. "Rise and shine princess!"

"Go away," a gravelly voice groaned out.

"You have a visitor," Asaka persisted and beckoned Kakashi in. Kakashi took a few steps forward, stopping at the threshold. He leant against the doorframe to consider the lump beneath the covers that was, judging by Haruno-san's manner, supposed to be his student.

"Tell them to come back later," the lump mumbled.

"It's your teacher sweetheart."

The lump shifted beneath the sunflower print blankets for a moment before Sakura's head slowly protruded out, blinking slowly against the light like a bear waking after months of hibernation. When Kakashi saw her his eyebrow, which was probably his most expressive attribute, rose up slightly in surprise.

"Morning Sakura," Kakashi greeted easily.

When she spotted him, her brows fell heavily over her eyes as her groggy mind fumbled to make sense of the humanoid shape before her. "What...?" She looked horribly confused and pissed off at the same time. Her eyes narrowed into button-hole slits as if that would help her focus.

Kakashi smiled and raised his hand in hello. The gesture somehow flipped a switch in Sakura and her eyes flung wide open. "Kakashi-sensei!" She shouted in recognition and the blanket became a writhing mess as she scrambled to get out of bed. "Crap, crap, crap! Argh! What time is it? Where's my clock! Ah! Sorry, sorry, crap, Hold on let me brush my teeth real fast—OW!" Sakura yowled in pain when she tried standing, crumbling instantly to the floor.

"Sakura!" Her father rushed to her side.

"I'm all right," she assured him, wincing as she massaged her legs. "Just sore. Really, really sore."

Asaka slowly helped his daughter up back onto the bed. Although she didn't cry out again Kakashi could tell by her grimace that even such small movements were painful. After getting her to sit on the edge of her mattress, Asaka ruffled her hair affectionately. "Easy there princess. According to your mother you came in pretty banged up last night."

Sakura avoided Kakashi's gaze and gave her father a sheepish grin. "I was just training."

"So I've been told," he said grimly.

"'Tou-chan, I'm fine," Sakura admonished. "So please stop worrying."

"I'm a doctor, it's my job to worry when someone's hurting, especially if its my own spawn. Anyways, I'll leave you to talk with your teacher...unless this is one of those parent-teacher things?" Asaka gave Kakashi a questioning glance.

Kakashi shook his head. "You're free to leave, though it may interest you to know that I've nominated your daughter for the Chunin Exam."

"The Chunin Exam?" both Harunos parroted Kakashi at the same time, though their expressions were anything but the same. Sakura appeared more taken aback than astonished while Asaka looked like he just read his daughter's name in the obituaries.

"Yes," Kakashi said, and held up Sakura's application form. "I was just stopping by to drop this off. Sakura, I've already told Naruto and Sasuke this: the Exam itself is non-compulsory. If you wish to participate, just sign this form and turn it in by 4:00 p.m. tomorrow at room 301."

Sakura nodded in understanding and glanced over at her father. "'Tou-chan? I mean, are you okay with this?"

She hadn't missed the dismay in his voice. Sakura recalled the first time when she told her father she was entering the Chunin Exams. Though he had never forbade her from taking the test, he had made it quite obvious that he didn't want her to participate; his own experience during the exam didn't exactly make him the strongest of its advocates.

Asaka's lips pressed together into a hard line as he eyed Sakura steadily. "Well, in the end it's up to you," he said diplomatically, but Sakura didn't need to be a trained shinobi to see the disapproval underneath his words. As if he thought he wasn't being clear enough about his opinion, he abruptly started towards the door. "I'm going to get breakfast ready," he muttered, purposely knocking shoulders with Kakashi on his way out. Asaka knew killing the messenger never accomplished much, but it did make him feel better, which was something.

"Well, your father doesn't seem to too excited about you talking the exams," Kakashi observed once Asaka was out of earshot.

"He'll get over it," Sakura said.

He nodded and let it go; he wasn't big on getting involved in other people's family business anyways, be it an overprotective father or a clan massacring older brother. "Well, I'll be going then."

"Wait, sensei."

Kakashi leant against the doorframe again to let her know she had his attention.

"Do you remember that conversation we had on our way back from Namikuni? The one about time travel?"

"Hmm…vaguely."

He was such a liar. Sakura remembered him admitting to perfect recall once. "Well, what if...what if it's actually real?"

"Why? Are you from the future, Sakura?" Kakashi asked, hitting the mark dead on.

In hindsight she should have just coolly admitted to being from the future and enlisted in her teacher's help. However his question had suddenly pounced on her from behind, catching her unawares and scaring the rationality right out of her. She had been prepared to reveal herself slowly, gradually shedding light on her predicament like turning the knob on a dimmer switch so that they could both adjust; she to the fact that now someone else knew about her predicament and Kakashi to the fact that his student was from the future. Instead Kakashi had simply flicked on a floodlight, blasting it straight into her face, and she panicked like a deer in headlights.

"What?! No! That's crazy! You're crazy!" she said. "Whatever gave you that idea?!"

Kakashi smiled mildly as if amused by his flustered student. "I was just kidding Sakura, calm down."

"I am calm," she shrilled.

His arched eyebrow said, "I hardly think so" but Kakashi didn't comment. Unfolding his arms, he straightened himself away from the doorjamb and made to leave. "Don't forget, the exam's non-compulsory. Oh, and nice hair by the way," he added breezily as if it had just occurred to him that Sakura had a new chin-length bob.

"Thanks," Sakura said, more to herself than anything, while absentmindedly rubbing the ends of her hair between her fingers. "It was starting to get in the way."

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After Kakashi dismissed them, Sasuke headed to the nearby mart, remembering the current dismissal state of his refrigerator. It was prime time for housewives to do their grocery shopping, and the store was filled with a cacophony of carts rattling, plastic bags rustling, and items beeping at the checkout counter.

Sasuke was perusing the dairy section when something pink caught the corner of his eye. His gaze flicked sideways and slid away disinterest. It had been a pink haired girl, but the length of her hair had been too short to be Sakura...is what he told himself. But something tugged at the back of his mind, compelling him turn his head once more for another glance.

The girl was farther down from him, bending over to survey the selection of yogurts. Her hair curtained-off her face, but her build and height were familiar. Sasuke took note of her clothes: a long yellow skirt dotted with tiny flowers, a plain white t-shirt, and a small leather satchel at her hip; all of which he had never seen Sakura wear. On top of the fact that her hair was too short, he was certain this girl couldn't be his female teammate, Haruno Sakura of Team Seven.

She straightened and Sasuke got a clear view of her profile; it was his female teammate, Haruno Sakura of Team Seven.

He quickly looked away, though he couldn't help but snatch a few more glances to make sure that the store lighting wasn't doing funny things to his vision. After re-affirming for the sixth time that, yes, it was Sakura, Sasuke found himself staring intently at the milk cartons before him while his mind tried to sort out the information he had just gathered.

Sakura, who he had told to quit being a ninja, had not shown up this morning to Team Seven's meeting. Sakura, who had not shown up this morning to Team Seven's meeting, was now here at the supermarket in civilian clothes without her forehead protector on.

_'Leave your hitai-ate home and don't come back.'_

Sasuke's eyes narrowed at the carton of Takashi Farm's Organic 2% Lowfat: _Our Cows Are rGBH Free!_ Was the whole hair cut some symbolic gesture as well?

He suddenly ground his teeth in irritation for caring in the first place. "Whatever, it's not like it's my problem," he muttered.

He was about to turn and leave when a voice next to him said, "I think they're all within the expiration date, Sasuke."

Sasuke flinched, though he quickly covered up his surprise with annoyance when he turned to face Sakura. "What's that supposed to mean?" He growled. "And 'Sasuke'?"

Sakura glossed over his obvious annoyance of her casual use of his name. "Well, you were staring at the milk section for a long time, so I thought you were trying to figure out the expiration dates," the pink haired girl said with a light laugh.

"I was just trying to find a specific brand," he scowled as he grabbed a random carton off of the shelves.

"Hmm…"

"What."

"I never really took you for a 'whole-milk' kind of guy," she said.

"I _only_ drink whole milk," he declared. Actually, he couldn't _stand_ the taste, but he'd rather chug an entire gallon of whole milk than admit to Sakura that she was right.

"Uh huhhhh…" Sakura was clearly unconvinced. She remembered a long time ago when they had stopped by the connivence store to buy some snacks after training. Sakura had gone in and grabbed some milk and bread, but Sasuke had refused his milk, claiming that he drank nothing over 1 percent milk fat on account of the "disgusting, buttery taste." It had been one of the rare moments in Sakura's younger days where she had thought Uchiha Sasuke was kindofsortof acting like a prick. Of course, she later sought to atone for such sacrilegious thoughts by reciting to Sasuke a sutra of how very cool and dashing and absolutely _perfect_ he was.

Back to the present however, where, as if to prove her wrong, Sasuke threw the carton into his plastic shopping basket. He then fixed her with a superior expression. Sakura shrugged, clearly unimpressed.

Sasuke's lips twitched as he inwardly scowled, his ego a bit miffed by her easy brushoff. "Tch, what're you doing here anyways? You weren't even at at the morning meeting today." He was a bit pleased with how he managed to slip that in without coming off as if he actually cared.

"Oh that?" Sakura laughed sheepishly. "I sort of accidentally slept in."

"You...slept in?"

"Yeah, I guess I just overdid it a bit the training grounds yesterday," she explained, wincing as she massaged her shoulder. "Kakashi-sensei ended up having to wake me up. I looked like such a train wreck."

Sasuke's brows furrowed. Haruno Sakura…slept in...Training grounds…overdid…just who _was_ this girl?

"Bunshin," he muttered as he regarded her with suspicion.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"So you didn't quit?"

Sakura's hand dropped from her shoulder as she shot him a puzzled look. "What? Quit? What do you mean—" Then it clicked. She recalled their spat yesterday, which was, in a sense, the reason why she was sore in the first place.

She snorted, trying to keep in her laughter. "Pft...wait...you thought that I _quit_ because of what you told me? _Please_, Sasuke."

Sasuke scoffed. "I could care less about whether or not you stay on the team. It was just something that idiot Naruto had mentioned. Whatever, this is stupid."

He then spun around and began walking away, but despite his annoyed facade, something tight had uncoiled in his stomach, and he suddenly felt lighter than before.

After Sasuke made it past the checkout line, he took a few steps outside when he heard Sakura call out after him.

"Sasuke! _Hey_! Ugh! Wait a sec!"

The Uchiha felt his eye twitch. The voices were different, but for some reason Sakura had picked up a knack for sounding just like Naruto. He'd have to be careful; it appeared Team Seven's idiocy was highly contagious. He spun around with his trademark Your Existence Annoys Me scowl on his face, however he was taken aback to find himself glaring daggers at a brown paper bag.

"Here," Sakura said as she pushed the bag into arms. "It's a god thing that I ran into you here today, or else I would've had to go all the way to your house."

Sasuke took a peek inside. "The hell? I don't want…"

Tomatoes. Big, beefy, red tomatoes; the bag was full of them.

Sasuke looked up at Sakura, trying to appear dispassionate. "Tomatoes."

"Yeah," she offered him a hesitant smile. "They're sort of like an apology…for yesterday. Sort of."

There was an awkward pause as the two regarded each other silently; Sakura biting her lower lip in discomfort while Sasuke stood rigidly with a brown grocery bag in one arm. Finally, Sasuke decided to speak. "What happened to your hands?"

"What?" Sakura looked down in confusion. "Oh these?" She said, like she had noticed the bandages plastered on the backs of her hands for the first time. "I, uh, fell. Alot."

_'On your knucles?'_ Sasuke had wanted to ask, but he didn't, opting for a disinterested shrug instead. "Did Kakashi tell you about the Chunin Exams tomorrow?"

"The Chunin Exams?" For some reason Sasuke thought she looked a bit uncomfortable. "Oh yeah, he came over with the application this morning."

He nodded. "See you there tomorrow then," he said and turned to go.

"Yeah…" she replied, and something in her voice made him glance over his shoulder. She was staring hard at the ground, deep in thought.

"Sakura," Sasuke called out, and her head snapped up in surprise. He paused and broke eye contact with her, looking as if he was deciding whether or not to say something. Finally his eyes found hers again. "You don't have to worry about the Chunin exams. You'll be fine."

"Huh?" It took a moment for Sakura to process his words before she erupted into a peal of laughter.

Sasuke's ego began to bristle once again as his compliment was flung back into his face. The _nerve_. He must have been making quite the sour expression because Sakura was quick in her attempt to pacify him. "No, no, no Sasuke, I'm not laughing at you," she said between giggles. She then drew in a long draught of air to calm herself, though she was still smiling. "But you're right," she said and leveled her gaze with his. "Thank you."

Sasuke squirmed uncomfortably beneath those huge green eyes full of sincerity and other serious things. "Yeah, well…see you tomorrow," he said gruffly and turned back around to continue on his way.

"Bye Sasuke!" Sakura called after him with traces of laughter still in her voice.

Without turning around, he raised a limp looking hand and shook it a few times, looking more like he was trying to shoo a fly than wave goodbye. In Sakura's books, however, he might as well have given her a parting bear hug.

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After riding out the high of the whole Chunin Exam thing, Naruto quickly found himself once again feeling dizzy and exhausted. Making his way back to his apartment, he threw himself belly-first onto his couch. From his vantage point, he could see his forehead protector and the Chunin application on the kitchen table, where he had thrown them after stumbling his way in. However, the sight of the paper did little to lighten his mood, and instead he was rocked by a sudden wave of nausea.

He plowed his head into the cushions and moaned into them, waiting for the sensation to pass. A few hours later, his doorbell buzzed loudly and he groggily cracked open his eyes. A quick glance at the clock, and he learned he had been asleep for two hours.

The door bell buzzed again, and Naruto groaned loudly at the hassle of it all. Gracelessly, he rolled off of his couch and padded towards the door with half-closed eyes. His head was pounding, and he hoped it wasn't that crazy salesman that had been recently been frequenting his apartment complex. He cracked open the door. "Whosit…Sakura-chan? What're you—" And then he noticed the hair. "_Sakura-chan?" _His voice cracked over the last bit.

"Hey," she greeted, a bit confused at her teammate's distressed expression.

"H-hair…" he stammered unintelligibly.

"Oh this?" Sakura fingered the ends of her bob unconsciously. Sasuke hadn't mentioned it so she had almost forgotten that she probably looked shockingly different now.

"Yeah, I cut it," she explained with a breezy laugh, as if everyone nowadays went from butt-long manes to chin-length bobs overnight.

"Why?" Suddenly Naruto grabbed his hair in consternation as a horrifying thought occurred to him. "You didn't really quit Team Seven did you?!"

"_What_?" Sakura asked, wondering what the correlation was between haircuts and quitting. "Why does everyone keep thinking I quit? Can't a girl just cut her hair without it meaning anything?" Except in Sakura's case it sort of did.

"But you weren't at the meeting this morning," Naruto pointed out.

"I just slept in by accident," she said, and before Naruto could ask why, Sakura steamrolled over his question with a new topic. "Anyways, I'm here to check up on your concussion."

"My what?"

"When you fell on your head yesterday, your brain got a boo boo," she said, reverting to the vocabulary she often used with toddlers at the hospital.

"Ooooh, right," Naruto said, nodding sagely at the enlightenment.

"So…can I come in?" Sakura asked already stepping past him into his home.

Naruto blinked. "What? I mean, yeah sure!" he said blushing as he stepped (stumbled) aside. Whoa. No. Freaking. Way. Sakura-chan. Female. In his house. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, he needed to play this cool, play this cool, playthiscoolplaythis—

"SAKURA-CHAN—"

"No Naruto," she cut him off, "no date."

Naruto wilted, looking like a puppy who had just been squirted with a water bottle. He then noticed the plastic bags in her hand. "What're those?" he asked as he followed her to his kitchen, already over his rejection.

She placed the bags on the table and he took a peek in. "Gross, _vegetables_," he said, rearing his head away from the bags as if were filled with manure, and from his point of view they might as well have been.

"Yes. _vegetables,_ " Sakura said dramatically. "God forbid, _nutrition._ Anyways, don't make that face, there're some fruit and yogurt in there too. I figured your refrigerator was in pretty bad shape, as usual."

Naruto put his hands up as he backed away from the bags. "Uh, no thanks Sakura-chan. My fridge is in great shape actually. Super buff. Chock full of carrots and broccoli and, uh that lattice stuff—"

"You mean lettuce."

"Oh yeah! Right," he said suddenly remembering. "That stuff, lettuce. Mmm. Gotta love it."

Sakura quirked an eyebrow and opened the fridge, letting the door slowly creak to the side as it revealed it's desolate interior to Naruto. They both stood in silence, contemplating the cold air as it blew across the barren shelves. Naruto half-expected a miniature tumble weed to roll past the lone carton of expired milk.

"Weird…it was full last night." he tried, and then looked at her, his blue eyes going all big and innocent.

"Those damn vegetarian goblins, right?" Sakura said sarcastically as she began to fill the fridge, and before he could say anything stupider (like agree with her), she shut the refrigerator door. "Naruto, how many times do I have to tell you? You can't live off of ramen forever."

"Of course I can!" He said obstinately with a stubborn set to his jaw.

Sakura rewarded his persistence with a smack to the back of the head (not too hard, for he still had a concussion), instantaneously shattering his firm stance. "Vegetables. One serving a day. Got it?" Sakura ordered. "And licking it doesn't count."

Naruto nodded unenthusiastically and looked at Sakura woefully. Oh sad life.

Actually, the truth was, with the Kyubi under his hood Naruto could probably live off of fried-dough for the rest of his life and still be as fit as a colt. Tt the same time, it wasn't like Sakura The Medic was ever one to just sit back and quietly watch as someone guzzled bowl after bowl of sodium bombs every day, no matter how many demon foxes he had stoking his metabolism.

"Anyways," Sakura hastened, trying to clear the air of Naruto's heavy pathos. "How's your head feeling?"

He shrugged half-heartedly, still sulking over all the nasty stuff Sakura had shoved into his fridge, and mumbled something, though he was quick to raise his voice once Sakura started cracking her knuckles. "Ah! I uh mean, headache, I still have a headache, but that's it."

"You haven't thrown up?"

"No."

"No seizures?"

"What?"

"Your body hasn't been uncontrollably flailing around?"

"Uh…"

"Good," said Sakura, satisfied. "Take these," she handed him a bottle ibuprofen. "Take two every three hours, get lots of sleep, and don't bother trying to read what it says," Sakura advised when she saw the blonde squinting at the container.

"Eh-bup-rof-en," Naruto tried anyways.

"Close," Sakura lied. "Now get some rest, and seriously. _Vegetables_."

Naruto nodded grimly, and while showing her to the door, he spotted the pice of paper on his table. When she opened the door and turned to say goodbye, he asked, "Oh yeah, Sakura-chan, did Kakashi-sensei talk to you about the Chunin exams tomorrow?"

For a moment, Naruto was worried Sakura had caught a whiff of something foul. The smile on her face dropped immediately, and he thought she might have flinched. However, before he could worry whether or not it was his body odor (he knew he should've taken that shower yesterday), Sakura was smiling pleasantly again, and Naruto inwardly breathed a sight of relief. "Yeah, he came over to my house this morning."

"Cool," he said with a grin, "then I'll see you tomorrow! We're going to be Chunin soon!"

Sakura just continued to smile. "Bye Naruto," she said, giving him a final wave before shutting the door.

Naruto stood for a moment in front of his closed door, basking in afterglow of being in Sakura's presence. It was cut short however when something thunked loudly to the floor by his feet. He looked down and narrowed his eyes.

"Huh? What's this?" He wondered as he bent over to pick up what appeared to be a hunk of crushed brass. He held up the piece of metal in the air, turning it this way and that as he examined it with a confused expression.

When he looked around to try and see where it came from, he was even more confused when he spotted the gaping hole in his door.

It was his door knob.

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The following afternoon found Sasuke and Naruto in front of the academy. It was 3:50 p.m. and there was still no sign of Sakura. From a few ways off, Kakashi watched his his students. Naruto kept his neck craned and blue-eyes trained on the main road, probably looking intently for some pink hair to crest the horizon. Sasuke was leaned up against the tree, attempting to appear nonchalant, but Kakashi didn't miss the tenseness in his shoulders and the way his eyes kept flicking in the same direction of Naruto's outpost.

It would be an overstatement to say that Kakashi was surprised when Sakura did not show up for the Chunin Exams the next day; he was an elite shinobi after all and his job description demanded that he always expect the unexpected. That's not to say that he wasn't disappointed in his female student. In fact, after what he had witness, he was pretty certain she'd be able to blow her competition out of the water—quite literally.

He reverted his attention to two boys before him. He really hated to burst their bubble— it was going to be such a bother to deal with their indignation and hot-blooded-youth.

"Well," he started and the two boys immediately snapped to attention. "It looks like Sakura's not going to show, which means you two can't take the test," he said, hoping the two would be mature about it.

"WHAT?!" Naruto shrilled.

Kakashi sighed wearily, feeling Sasuke's black eyes trying to burn holes into him as he unenthusiastically waded into an explanation. "In order to take the exam, you're required participate in teams of three. Since there are two of you, which is obviously one less than you need. I didn't tell you this ahead of time because I figured the both of you would pressure Sakura into taking the exam—"

"Quick Sasuke! Follow me! I know where Sakura-chan lives!" Naruto bellowed, already leading the charge down the main road.

Sasuke didn't say anything (like how the hell Naruto knew where Sakura lived, though he had a pretty good idea considering his own experiences with stalkerish fangirls), but ripped down the road after Naruto with an intensity that conveyed his urgency better than his own words ever could.

They blitzed through the maze of streets like a pair of miniature juggernauts, barreling past pedestrians with little finesse and more brute force than expected of shinobi. Yet skipping out on all the fancy little twirls and flourishes proved to be worth it when they found themselves in front of Sakura's house with a few minutes to spare. Naruto literally threw himself to a stop against the door like a battering-ram, following it up by pounding furiously against it with the bottom of his fist. "Sakura-chan!" He shouted, his voice shredded and out of breath from the hard pace. "Sakura-chan! Come on! We don't have much time!"

Behind him, Sasuke was folded over with his hand on his knees, breathing hard. Once they got Sakura, they'd be pressed for time, but it was better to be late than never. After all, who'd deny an Uchiha from participating in the exams?

"Sakura-cha—" Naruto stopped when he heard the lock snick and the door open. Sakura stood in the door frame and peered out at her teammates, looking completely unsurprised by the two sweaty boys on her porch.

"Naruto. Sasuke," she greeted casually.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto gnashed, obviously distressed by her nonchalance. "Hurry! We're going to be late—!"

"No."

It was as if someone had taken the universal remote and hit "pause" on the two boys. For a moment their labored pantings stopped as their entire system took a moment to process her words. Someone hit "play" and then they were breathing again, but it seemed as if a fire within them had been extinguished.

"What?" Naruto looked at her in a wide-eyed mixture of confusion and betrayal, and in that moment Sakura knew exactly what people meant when someone looked as if the rug had been yanked out from beneath them. She almost felt bad.

"No. I am not taking the exams," Sakura said, putting steel into her words so that they knew she would be immovable on this subject.

"But if you don't take them then we—"

"I know," Sakura said.

"Then _why_," Naruto demanded, because not even his crush for her could fill in the hole of disappointment that was quickly growing inside of him. The Chunin Exams were the next step to being a Hokage; it was the tangible bridge that would eventually lead him to his dreams and here Sakura was, holding a lighter to it.

"You said that you were going to take it," he accused.

"No Naruto, you both just assumed that I was going to show up today in front of the academy. I, on the other hand, didn't say a single word about anything."

"But…I…Sakura-chan, you" he tried, grasping for reasons, excuses, _anything_ to convince her that she was wrong and that she actually really wanted to take this exam. Finally he gave up and just _looked_ at her in hurt, and Sakura grit her teeth as she clamped down on her bleeding heart.

Sasuke made a frustrated noise behind Naruto. "Sakura, is this about our argument before? Because I told you yesterday at the supermarket that you'll be fine."

"No, it has nothing to do with that," she said.

"Then _what_," he asked, his black eyes searching her face for answers. All he found were a hard set to her jaw and unwavering green eyes. Sasuke began to wonder who the stubborn idiot on Team 7 really was.

"I just think…" she started, but Sasuke locked gazes with her, and she paused, biting her lip before looking away. "I just think you guys aren't ready yet."

"Well I hardly think _you're_ in any place to judge," he growled.

"Really? Is that what you think," Sakura asked, and he just narrowed his eyes in answer.

"Fine," she said, "let's do this, then. If I lose, I'll go along with you guys to the academy. But if _you_ lose, Sasuke, you have to promise me you and Naruto will willingly drop out of the Chunin exams, and you won't mention it again for another two years."

"What!? What're you talking about Sakura-chan," Naruto cried in confusion. "Lose what? Two years?"

Sasuke didn't say anything, though his trouble expression more or less covered the same sentiments.

Sakura brought her hands back to tighten the knot in her forehead protector. A wry smile flickered across her lips as her eyes found Sasuke's. He held her rock steady gaze.

"Sasuke," she said, "fight me."

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* * *

**author's note****_  
**1. so the bit about Sakura's parents I wrote before this whole _Road to Ninja_ thing happened, making her family totally non-canon. I guess that's what you get when you take your sweet time between updates. Whatevever, Haruno Asaka's the man and totally doesn't look have a freaking pink star for hair.

2. Also, I realized the jump from Sakura being all, "ARGH MY LEGGZZZ! I CANTZZ LE MOVE" to "Casual shopping at the grocery market" might be a little abrupt. Obviously she used a hyperpotion.

3. …okay lame joke. She used her medical jutsu. Her father was _not_ happy to see her leave the house, but he never really is happy to see his "princess" go anywhere without him, so moot point. So yeah. Medical Jutsu. Craaaazy stuff.


	8. The Big Reveal

**viii. The Big Reveal **

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Sakura's thrown gauntlet struck the two boys silent. She watched Sasuke carefully as confusion rippled across the surface of his face before it quickly settled back into its usual mask of impassivity.

"Fight you," Sasuke repeated for clarification.

Sakura nodded curtly. "First person on both knees looses. No jutsu." He looked at her as if she'd just made a really bad joke.

"That's crazy!" Naruto burst out from behind them.

The hackles on Sakura's pride rose. "Why? Why is it crazy that I fight Sasuke, Naruto," she demanded with challenge in her eyes.

"No, no, no, no," Naruto amended hastily, desperate to find safe footing on thin ice. "I just meant this whole thing is crazy, ya know? We're all on the same team! We shouldn't be fighting each other like this!"

"You two fight all the time," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but we're _us_ and you're…" Naruto trailed off.

"Go on," she snapped, daring him to finish his words. "I'm _what_. A Girl?"

Naruto squirmed uncomfortably beneath the press of her angry eyes. "Well, yeah…sort of?"

"So, just because I'm a girl you think I shouldn't fight, because I'm weak."

"Yeah!" Naruto enthusiastically agreed, glad that Sakura-chan was finally seeing his point of...

"Wait a second," the blonde backpedalled. "Wait, Sakura-chan that's not what I—"

"You're being stupid Sakura," Sasuke cut in.

If there was one thing Sakura couldn't stand, it was a slight to her intelligence, no matter the context. A snarl instinctively ripped across her features, but she forced it into an awry, teeth-baring grin. "Is that what you think Sasuke-_kun_," she bit out. She had the sudden urge to grab him by his pretty white neck and pop off that big fat head of his. "Do you really think I'm 'stupid'?" She took the porch's stairs with slow, easy steps. The old wood barely creaked underfoot as she stalked towards him like a lioness, her gait languid and predatory.

Unease prickled the back of Sasuke's neck. Something was off about the girl. It was like taking an image of the Sakura he knew and superimposing it over the Sakura he saw now. She had the same pink hair—albeit it was shorter—the same face, the same clothes, but something didn't quite match up. It was in the unsettlingly way she moved; the way her gaze wouldn't break no matter how much force he put into his; the way something inside of him shook like it had when he had come face to face with Zabuza. Instinctively, his foot slid back. Sakura's head slightly canted to one side, like a cat watching a bird.

"Or maybe you're just afraid." A soft, wicked little smile curled over a corner of her mouth.

_Afraid_.

The word set Sasuke off like a gun. With one almighty sweep of his pride, all the fear and uncertainty was gone, replaced by anger, disgust, and above all arrogance. He was an _Uchiha_, damn it, and with that name he carried on his shoulders the illustrious legacy of Konoha's most skilled and privileged. As the last of the clan it was his duty to keep that name unsullied, and he most certainly wasn't going to let some pink-haired girl from a _civilian _family taint the great name.

His gaze hardened. If Sakura wanted a fight so badly, then so be it. She would learn despair when he showed her the vast distance that separated their levels.

His body's image wavered like a mirage under the desert heat before snuffing out of view. A cloud of dirt roiled in the small eddies of air he had left behind. Just as Sakura tensed for the coming blow, she felt the air move around her as he reappeared behind her, grabbing her arm in an iron-tight grip. He planned to twist it back, locking her elbow and forcing her to submit. It was simple really, but that simplicity would drive home the point of how much greater his skill level was in comparison to hers. Plus, Sasuke always had been a great believer in economical moves.

However, his neat little plan began to unravel when Sakura, in a surprising display of speed and strength, wrenched her arm out of his grasp and grabbed _his_ wrist instead. Her other hand whipped back and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. He looked down at her in unguarded surprise.

She caught his eye and answered with a bat of her lashes and a saccharine smile. "Flat out on the back counts, too Sasuke-kun." Before he could ask, he felt his feet leave the ground as she swung him over her shoulder like a human sledgehammer.

The dirt was rushing up to meet him and, by the grace of his reflexes, Sasuke managed to throw out his free arm to brace himself against the earth before his face could be pile driven into the ground. He let the momentum of the throw wrench him out of her grasp and carry him through a backflip. Landing lightly on his feet, he spun quickly to face Sakura, sensing it unwise to keep his back to her. He was right. Not giving him a chance to collect him self, she charged him like an angry bull, fist drawn back and ready to drive a hole through his face. Or at least that's what he gathered from that barbaric battle cry she was roaring.

He dropped to the ground to evade her punch and kicked his leg out, hoping to sweep her legs out from beneath her. Already having anticipated the move, she planted her hands on his shoulders, using them as leverage to lift her off the ground, up and over him. She landed lightly on her feet, twisting around straight into a dead run. She leapt into the air, raising her leg straight up before bringing down on Sasuke like a guillotine. He rolled out of the way, and the axe-kick slammed into the ground where he had been just moments ago. Dust exploded at the point of impact, and Sasuke swore he heard the earth crack.

Sakura straightened slowly, a cloud of flustered dirt billowing at her knees like waves of ochre mist. She was breathing hard, her lungs clattering up and down against her chest bones as they expanded and contracted. She sucked in painful, but much needed gulps of air through her clenched teeth. She didn't have much time; already she could begin to feel the strain on her twelve-year-old body.

She glared at Sasuke with one eye; the other was squeezed shut as if she were trying to tamp down on the pain. Physically he was pristine—literally untouched. His expression, on the other hand, looked as if he were undergoing a lobotomy; great paradigm shifts tended to have that effect.

She allowed herself a cocky little smirk. Smashing someone's initial expectations of her to itty-bitty bits was always oh so satisfying.

"HOLY CRAP! Sakura-chan! You're. Freaking. AWESOME!" Naruto shouted from the sidelines, forgetting it was in his best interest that she'd loose. This was, after all, a side of her they had never expected.

Her unprecedented speed aside, Sakura's fighting technique went against everything Sasuke had assumed about the girl. It was an aggressive, no-holds-barred style that had all the subtly of a rampaging rhino. There was no way in the farthest depths of _hell_ that this was the same girl who complained about getting sweat stains during training.

Sasuke shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Okay, fine, so had made a few erroneous assumptions and maybe Sakura hadn't spent _all_ those free afternoons painting her nails, but that didn't change anything. They were in the middle of a fight, and he had his clan's name to uphold. He took in a deep breath, and closed his eyes, letting the calm settle over him. '_You're an _Uchiha._ Focus_.'

The smirk on Sakura's face twisted into a grimace as she eyed Sasuke warily. Up to this point in their fight she knew her unwarranted strength had frazzled his nerves, but it seemed he had finally collected himself; the real fight was about to begin.

Sasuke eyes flicked opened and in the same moment he disappeared.

'_Here it comes_,' she thought, steeling herself.

The air in front of her vibrated and Sakura barely had the chance to mutter a curse before a kick came at her ribs. She raised an arm up to block it, wincing as the force of the blow reverberated through her very bones; oh she was going to feel _that_ one tomorrow. Not giving her the time to retaliate, Sasuke flickered out of view again. He appeared crouched down with his back to her. Using his arms and foot as supports, he brought his leg back and Sakura crossed her arms just in time to receive the vicious mule kick aimed at her solar plexus. The attack sent her sliding back a few feet in the dirt, and then he was behind her. She was just beginning to turn around when his kick connected with her head and sent her flying. She hit the ground, tumbling a few times across the dirt road before managing a few back handsprings to contain the momentum.

Sakura had just regained her footing when Sasuke blitzed her again, showering her with a torrent of kicks and punches; appearing and disappearing like strikes of lightening. Her breathing was already beginning to grow labored, and she couldn't tell if she was slowing down or if he was speeding up. He clocked her at the base of her spine with his elbow, driving her downwards. Her hands flew out to keep her face from smashing into the ground, and the skin of her right knee burst open as it scraped the rough earth.

"Damn," Sakura rasped out, panting hard. Unlike her explosive, take-no-prisoners approach, Sasuke's attacks were ruthless, precise, and mechanical, raining down continuously, giving his opponent no room to catch a breath or regain footing.

But technically speaking, Sasuke wasn't better than her. She knew where the blows were going to land, where she was supposed to be, and how she should counter. It was just that her body couldn't keep up. It was as if the signal between her brain and the rest of her nervous system was jammed. She grimaced at her own thin, bony wrists—achieved after months of dieting, she was sure—shaking as they struggled to support her weight. Twelve-year-old Sakura needed to get her priorities in order.

"Give up, Sakura," Sasuke warned.

She looked up, wiping the sweat and spit from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Fire still burned in her eyes. "One knee doesn't count, Sasuke-_kun_," she said and—_Was she seriously going to do this? Screw it, she had a future to change—_drove her fist into the ground.

The earth blew up, to put it mildly. It wasn't even a quarter of the craters Sakura preferred to make, but her chakra tank was beginning to run low, and blowing open an eight-foot basin into the ground would just lead to difficult questions; she could pass this one-footer off as the result of some intensive strength training. Besides, rocks still crumbled away, clouds of dirt exploded in all directions, while Sasuke lost his footing _and_ looked like he just got his second lobotomy. All in all, Sakura was satisfied with the results. Her knees buckled slightly beneath her. Steadying herself, Sakura looked down at her legs, frowning.

Despite his initial shock, Sasuke quickly composed himself, stomping down on his back leg to regain his balance. He looked down at the shallow depression, the wheels in his head clicking and whirring, trying to come up with an explanation.

"YEAAAAAAAAH!" Naruto blared again. "KICK HIS ASS!"

'_Ignore the idiot and _focus_, Sasuke,' _he tersely reminded himself, _'you can think later. Quick, here she comes.'_

Sakura barreled towards him with fire in her eyes. Sasuke jerked his head back to avoid an uppercut. Suddenly those tiny fists seemed a lot deadlier than before. Clasping her hands together, Sakura brought it down towards the crown of his head as a double axe handle. He whirled out of the way and the blow slammed harmlessly into the ground, shattering the earth. Cracks spider webbed out beneath her fists and Sasuke felt the ground tremble.

"Gorilla," he muttered.

"_What was that?!" _Sakura roared, clearly having heard the insult. She twisted around with a wild haymaker aimed at his head. He ducked, slipping past her defense. Sakura's glance flitted down and their gazes locked. Her eyebrows furrowed and she grit her teeth. _'Shit.'_ She brought her knee up, trying to smash it into his face, but he pivoted easily out of the way.

'_Behind you!' _She had just spun around to face him, when his punch rammed straight into her stomach.

Her eyes grew wide as the air was forced out of her. Her body crumpled forward, folding over his fist, and she grabbed onto his arm to keep her self from falling, coughing loudly.

Surprise flitted across Sasuke's face; he had expected her to catch that.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto thundered down the stairs towards his teammates.

"This is why I told you to stay down!" Sasuke hissed angrily as he tried to retract his arm, only to have Sakura tighten her grip on it.

Sakura steeled her shaking leg and dug her heels into the ground. She lifted her head, still struggling to breath, and Sasuke was dismayed to see the defiance in her eyes. "Go. To. Hell," she bit out between ragged breaths. God _damn_ this body.

Sasuke felt her hands loosen and she slipped down.

Startled, he instinctively reached down for her, but Naruto was already by her side. "Sakura-chan!"

"_Don't_," she snarled emphatically. Naruto's hands froze, hovering uncertainly above her shoulders. She looked up at Sasuke, wincing and glaring at the same time, clutching the throbbing, white-hot spot in her gut. "Still. One. Knee," she managed to gasp out. Sure enough, she was crouched over with one knee digging into the ground, the other pointing triumphantly up towards the sky.

Sasuke clenched his fists, diggings his nails into the flesh of his palm. Sensing his anger, Naruto whirled on the other boy, spreading his arms between his two teammates like a blockade. "That's _enough_!"

"Naruto! What're you doing? Get out of the—!" Sakura started, but he cut her off.

"I've decided!" He said. "I'm not taking the Chunin Exams either."

"Wait, Naruto—" She began to protest, and then bit back her complaint.

"So Sasuke, you can try and make us both take the test, or just give in now."

The two boys squared off, a silent exchange passing between them. Sasuke broke eye contact, his gaze landing on Sakura for a moment before meeting Naruto's again. The fight in his body slowly drained out. Muscle by muscle, he began to uncoil. His expression was unreadable. Sakura thought he might have nodded a little. Without a word, he turned to leave.

Sakura let her other knee thud to the ground. The orange jacket filled her vision, blurring behind a watery veil of hot tears. '_This view, again,'_ she thought bitterly, focusing on the red spiral on Naruto's back. She knew she was being petty. She should be happy she managed to keep the boys away from the Chunin Exams, that had been the main point, but shame burned through her. _They_ had rescued _her. _She slammed a frustrated fist against the ground.

"Sakura-chan?"

She looked away, trying to hide her face while blinking away the tears. It didn't do much. Soon, a steady stream was spilling down her cheeks, dripping down and splatting wetly against her bare legs.

Naruto crouched down, his blue eyes big with concern and empathy. "You okay?"

Sakura bit held back a sob and silently shook her head: _No_.

After a long moment he placed an awkward hand on her shoulder. "Uhm there, there," he tried.

The tears started coming faster and she felt a sudden lurch of homesickness. She missed Naruto—Big Naruto who always seemed to know just what to say and during moments like this to make her feel better. The Naruto who'd gather her up in his arms, crush her in a bear hug, and joke about ding-dong-ditching that ass-hole Sasuke's house later. Then going on to actually do it.

And she missed herself, the eighteen-year-old, 115 pounds of fury that could bring mountains to their knees and give an upstart genin a sound thrashing with both hands tied behind her back, Sharingan be damned.

Before she could _really_ get going on her crying jag, an arm hesitantly wrap around her. "Hey," Naruto said, pulling her closer against his chest when he realized she wasn't going to punch his face in. "What's wrong? You totally kicked ass out there!"

"No I didn't," she burbled morosely. "I sucked."

"Hell no! Did you see that bastard's face when you blew up the ground? He looked like someone kicked him in the nuts! Where'd you learn to do that? Scared the living _crap_ out of me," he said, laughing nervously with genuine fear.

"Really?" She asked between snuffles. She knew she was fishing at this point, but his words felt cool against her burned ego, and honestly she didn't give a shit if she was maybe being a little needy and asking a twelve year old for compliments.

"Swear it," he said solemnly and held out his pinky in front of her. A girlish giggle bubbled out of her as she wrapped her own pink around his. Naruto grinned cheekily. "We can even go egg that bastard's house later, too, if it'll make you feel better."

Sakura looked up at him in all her tear, snot-smeared glory, and smiled. "Thanks, Naruto."

Before Naruto had a chance to suavely brush it off and take advantage of the really good atmosphere they had going, Sakura's eyelids slid shut and she wordlessly crumpled against him.

"Sakura-chan? Hey, c'mon." Worry crept into Naruto's voice when she didn't respond. "Sakura-chan. _Sakura-chan_. C'mon wake up." He began to shake the lifeless girl with a sense of urgency. "Sakura-chan! No! You _need_ to stay awake! You can't die, not now! Sakura-chan!"

Suddenly a shadow slid over him. Naruto looked up woobie-eyed at the figure. "Kakashi-sensei," his lower lip trembled. "Sakura-chan…Sakura-chan, she…she…"

"Is fine," Kakashi finished for him. He crouched before his students and laid two fingers against the girl's neck to check her pulse. "She's just a little a low on chakra, that's all."

With that diagnosis, Kakashi gently swung Sakura's limp arm around his neck and maneuvered her onto his back. Straightening up, he gave his blonde student a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'll take her home." Before Naruto had a chance to protest, (after all, as the hero of this scene, wasn't it supposed to be _his_ duty to take her to the hospital?) Kakashi placed a hand on top of his student's head. Naruto grimaced as the gloved palm ruffled his hair. "Good job today. I'm proud of you."

"Huh? Wha' did I do?"

Kakashi's eyes crinkled into a smile. He patted Naruto's head a few more times before walking off with Sakura.

Naruto stomped his foot petulantly against the ground. "Wait! Kakashi-sensei! You can't just do that!" He shouted after his teacher.

Without turning around, Kakashi raised his hand in goodbye.

For some reason, Naruto felt like he'd just been jipped.

.

.

.

Kakashi was ambling along when he felt Sakura stir at his back. "Kakashi-sensei?" She croaked muzzily into his ear.

"The one and only," he said and adjusted his grip on her.

Sakura squeaked as her stomach flipped over and a wave of nausea rolled through her.

"Everything all right back there?"

"Fine. Just a little drained," she managed to mumble. It felt like her brain was on a seesaw; everything was moving up and down.

Sakura felt Kakashi's chuckle rumble through her. "I would think so. You've used up quite the amount of chakra."

"Whoops," she croaked with a half-assed attempt at a laugh; her teacher's gait was making her head spin. "Where're we going?"

"Home."

"Oh."

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Sakura rested her forehead against his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut. "Kakashi-sensei?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry," she rasped.

"Sakura, if you're going to throw up…"

"No, I mean the Chunin exams."

"Ah," he said. "That. Well, don't worry too much about it."

"Aren't you disappointed?" She asked gloomily against his shoulder.

"Furious, actually," he quipped.

Sakura's head shot up. "Sensei!"

She felt his chuckle again. "I'm kidding, Sakura. No, I'm not mad or disappointed."

"You're not?"

"Well I _had_ hoped you guys would participate so that I could watch my cute little genin tear apart the other students—"

"_Sensei_."

"_Sakura_," he replied gamely. "But, I left the final decision up to you. I'm sure you had your own good reasons not to take part."

"You're not going to ask me why?"

"Would you like me to ask?" He rejoined with a playful smile.

Sakura bit her lip. She should just tell him. "Sensei, could you put me down for a sec?"

"Now? Right here?"

"Right here," she said, knowing she had to tell him before she wimped out. Strike while the iron's still hot, as they say, or more accurately, while her common sense was still malfunctioning from the lack of chakra.

Kakashi crouched low and she slid off of his back like a boneless mollusk. An apt comparison, since her legs gave out as soon as her feet touched the ground. Before her face could make an unfortunate acquaintance with the ground, Kakashi quickly steadied her.

"Easy there," he said. "You can always show me later, Sakura."

"You never know, Sensei, you might have to go rescue a cat out of a tree later," Sakura said dryly.

"Ah, yes, that's always a possibility," he agreed.

"Anyways," she forged ahead, shifting into a more serious tone, "just pay close attention."

"I'm all ears and half-an-eye," he assured her.

If Sakura thought his joke was lame, she didn't express it. Her attention was already focused inwards as she carefully began to draw upon her chakra.

In hindsight, it was an incredibly stupid idea given that the dial on her chakra tank was already wavering just above the critically low mark. Later, she would just blame it on fatigue messing with her head. It's not like she was _actually_ stupid.

"Kakashi-sensei, I," Sakura paused for dramatic effect as a halo of green light flickered around her hand, "am from the future." She then placed her glowing hand over the scrape on her knee. The skin tingled as she regenerated cells and zipped them back together again. She pulled her hand away, revealing the smooth, unblemished skin beneath.

She looked up, preparing herself for the inevitable onslaught of questions when things took a downward turn. The world tipped over and she felt as if she were looking out of a tumbling machine, everything was going around and around and around. She took a drunken step back before sinking to her knees. The ground had this amazing gravitational pull, and she had no choice but to lower herself onto her stomach and let her cheek press against the dirt. Someone was breathing funny, as if there was a carpenter sawing away wood in the person's lungs. Through the haze draped over her thoughts, she sleepily wondered if the person was her. Further away she could hear Kakashi calling her name, but her tongue felt too heavy to answer, so she kept quiet and let the darkness drag her deeper into unconsciousness.

.

.

.

_A warm afternoon breeze wandered through the open window. It skirted across the tops of the seated genin whose gazes were transfixed on the battle-scarred man who loomed before them at the front of the class. A dark, twisted grin stretched across Ibuki's face as he undid his bandana, revealing his head with a flourish. A wave of startled gasps washed over the crowd of young shinobi. "These are the scars," he said, amused by their reaction as he displayed the holes drilled into his skull. _

_The breeze sighed out of the room, flowing through the hallways, quickly gaining strength and speed until it burst through the academy doors. It rushed through the village, sweeping past the stalls and homes and ripping across the river until it barreled headlong into the fence, sending the rusting links shivering in the ominous breeze. The forest rose up before her, the gnarled trees twisting out of the out of the gloom with a prisoner's anguish. It seemed alive, like some slow moving behemoth with it's moss-ridden maw open wide with anticipation. _

_The monstrous face before her stretched with horrifying viscosity. Ochre seeped in from the edges. A pair of venomous yellow eyes peered out beadily from a black mask. Something constricted around her chest and she struggled to breathe. The face grinned before it extended its jaws, exposing a cavern lined with jagged, sandstone teeth. A hot, dry wind blasted out from the creature's gullet, and sand scattered across her face; it was going to swallow her whole. She wanted to scream, but there was no more air left in her lungs. She twisted and flailed, but couldn't get loose. _

_Then creature's maw snapped shut on her. _

.

.

.

Gradually, Sakura came to. Her vision was still blurred with sleep, and though she couldn't see clearly, the familiar smell of ammonia and the metronomic beep of the heart monitor clued her in on where she was. She stayed still and waited for the rest of her conscious to slowly rise to the surface.

She turned her head. Past the bars on the hospital bed, she caught Kakashi sitting on a folding chair against the wall reading that orange book of his. "You're awake," he noted without looking up. It was only when the bed creaked as she struggled to sit up that he gave her his attention. "How're you feeling?"

Sakura eyed the needle in her arm critically—whoever had stuck her had done a sloppy job with the taping. "Better than before…how long was I—?"

"Just a few hours. Your chakra plummeted pretty low. Gave us all quite the scare," he said, and returned to his erotica.

Sakura didn't doubt him. It must have been pretty bad if even her flaky teacher stuck around to wait for her to wake up. She had grossly overestimated 12-year-old Sakura's stamina. Again.

Which reminded her. "Sensei, I need to tell you something important, I—"

"Am from the future?" He guessed as he flipped a page.

"How did you—"

"You did mention it before passing out."

"Oh…right…"

Sakura picked at the lint on her blanket as the clock ticked loudly on the wall. She waited for Kakashi to jump out of his seat in disbelief or call her a liar. Instead he sat there reading that damn book like she'd just made some lame remark about the weather.

She heard the dry rasp of paper as Kakashi turned another page.

"_Sensei!" _

"Yo," he said a little too nonchalantly.

Sakura made a frustrated noise. "I'm being serious here!"

"Mmm, I know."

"Well you're taking this all well," she huffed. She knew she was being petulant, but really, when one announces that she just warped through the time-space continuum, a reaction is to be expected at the very least.

"Am I?" There was no hiding the amusement in his voice.

"I don't know, does this happen often?"

The book finally closed with a loud clap. "The time traveling? No, first time hearing of it, but it's the only thing that makes sense."

"…makes sense?"

"Well a few days ago, I was helping this old lady back home with the groceries—true story," he said with a hand raised to cut off her protest. "Anyways, I was cutting through the training fields on my way back home, when I spotted you practicing."

"What does that—"

"I believe it was five trees."

"What?"

"That you destroyed. With your bare hands."

"Oh…oh. OH!" Sakura quickly did the math in her head. "So, when you were joking about my being from the future yesterday…"

"Mmm," he nodded blithely.

"If you knew the whole time, why didn't you say anything?"

"I did try," he reminded her.

"I didn't know you were being serious!"

"I'm always serious Sakura," Kakashi said. He let out a heavy sigh, as if the conversation was wearing him out. "Besides, I figured you'd tell me if it was important."

Sakura nodded slowly, letting it all sink in. Fair enough.

Once again, silence descended upon the room. This time, it was Kakashi who broke it. "So," he lazily began. _Icha-Icha_'s spine cracked as he picked up on the story again.

"So…?" Sakura parroted, trying to get a read on where her teacher was taking the conversation. She knew his blasé attitude could be deceiving.

"Why exactly were you so dead set against take the Chunin Exam? We both know it can't be because you were afraid."

'_This is it.' _Sakura thought. This was the part where she told her teacher everything that happened. Maybe this time, with Copy Ninja Kakashi on her side, she had a fighting chance against fate. She started stitching the story together. "Well, the thing is," she began, and then stopped.

Her gaze turned inward and a look of consternation crept into her expression. She looked like someone rummaging through her bag. Her search began to grow frantic and her eyes grew wide with panic as it dawned on her that it wasn't there. Her heart did a free fall into her stomach.

Kakashi looked up from his book, sensing his student's agitation. "Sakura?"

She strained to keep the hysteria out of her voice: "…Sensei, I can't remember."

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.

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* * *

**Author's Notes_**

1. Have you been punched in the gut before? It hurts like a little BITCH. If you have been clocked in the stomach and came away totally unscathed then a) whoever punched you must have had sissy fists or b) you have abs of STEEL (holy shit). Either way, for narrative's sake, let's just agree that taking a blow to your stomach (or any internal organ for that matter) is painful enough to bring you to your knees.

2. As an aside, I've heard being punched in the kidneys is also pretty rough going. Anyone have first hand experience?

3. Lastly, but definitely not least..ly. You guys are amazing. For everyone that has come to this point, thank you so much for giving this story a fighting chance. I know that updates can be slow (Really. Slow.) but it's your encouragement and ego-stroking that keep me from giving up.

4. Basically, I love you guys. Here's a big ol' lusty kiss for all you beautiful reviewers: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWAH.

5. Also, would it be heresay for me to change my penname? Food for thought.

6. As always…REVIEWS, EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS, LOVE, AND COHERENT HATE APPRECIATED (okay, maybe not so much the last one.)


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